Cinderblock grunted, hurling a wooden chair at me. I ducked, and it exploded into splinters on the opposite wall. He used the distraction to lunge, his rock-like fist pounding furiously into my ribs. My skull throbbed as I soaked up the pain, runnels of sweat pouring down my body. I waited for my opening, grabbing him and smashing my fists into his ribs. Every blow was a feedback loop to my stormtech, increasing my strength. Blue pooled into my right arm, charging strength into those muscles. I delivered two more brutal strikes to his lungs, pain shivering up my arms, his body rippling with tension. I reared back, smashing him across the jaw, following up with an elbow into his throat. Panting hard, I swooped in – but he caught my arm mid-strike. I tensed. He’d noticed the stormtech flowing into the parts of my body I was using to attack. And he’d realised he could use them to predict my movements.
Oh, hell.
A flash of a grin on Cinderblock’s face. He drove my arm up, driving his knuckles into my armpit, once, twice, three times. Pain poured through me in relentless waves. He locked me in a furious, sweating frenzy. Our legs tangled, faces inches apart, his breath blasting in my face. I headbutted him, his nose popping against my forehead, him stamping down hard on my toes. I locked my legs around his, sent us tumbling forward and tearing through a thin sheet of panelling with a great shredding sound and smashing onto a table, the flimsy object shattering under our tangled weight. I twisted away first, kicking to my feet, heart hammering, our chests heaving as we faced each other.
Never assume your enemy’s stupid, Alcatraz always told the fireteam. Observe them, get every advantage you can.
I feinted forward, the stormtech charging into my right arm as I raised it. He easily parried the blow. Only, I’d tricked him into staring at my stormtech. I chopped at his throat with my left hand, following up by clubbing him across the face. The stormtech now driving into my left arm, I instead thrust my right shoulder into his bulk, sending him smashing backwards into the faux-concrete, chunks of metallic foam spraying. I stuck my leg out to trip him and finish the job, but I’d overreached. Off-balance, he charged me, flipping me over his shoulder and slamming me to the floor so hard I expected to hear my spine snapping like a twig.
Head stabbing with pain, he wrapped his bulky body over mine, his weight pressing me down in a lock as his fists hammered into my sides. I thrashed for all I was worth, kicking up waves of bloody sand. Nothing. I was locked down. He rolled me onto my back, knees pinning my arms as he choked the life out of me. I gurgled, spraying his face with saliva as darkness faded in around the edges of my vision, my struggles becoming weaker and weaker. The stormtech twitching like crazy inside me, plunging into my arms to give me the strength to fight back. He was waiting for that, clamping down so hard around me I felt something inside me give a soft crunch. If it weren’t for the stormtech, I’d have already been killed. But my body couldn’t, wouldn’t, let me die.
My fumbling hand gripped a broken-off chair leg, nails peeking out at the end. I brought it clubbing down across his toes with everything I had. He howled and released me. I tore away, staggering to my feet. Body throbbing, skin dripping with sweat, mind on fire. I scooped the broken remains of the chair up as he ripped the wooden leg out of his foot and came charging. My body was striated with throbbing blue as I brought the heavy object smashing across his head like a hammer. It shattered, showering splinters across the arena with an ear-shattering crack. He was slammed sideways, head thunking off the wall, crashing onto the gritty sand. Unmoving.
I stepped away, my breath burning in my throat as blue strands swirled faster and faster around my ribcage, looping around my thighs. I hadn’t seen it this furious in years. I looked at Cinderblock’s mangled head, dripping blood and twisted at an odd angle. My muscles seized, my hands opening and closing, still ready to fight. High above me, customers exchanged winnings.
In an awful moment of clarity, I wondered what Kasia would think about this. Or Artyom. What would Kowalski say if she could see me now? I looked at my bloody hands and I hated them, hated the stain on my skin. But another part of me basked in being centre stage, in being the battle machine Harmony had made me.
I prodded my side tentatively. Had I broken a rib? Torn a muscle? The pain had dulled to an ache. The muscle already hardening, like a katana blade being folded over. Whatever it was, the stormtech was already repairing me as I fought. I stretched, feeling the power roll through muscles reforged by stormtech, smelling the toxic sweetness of my sweat.
My next opponent entered the arena. Tattooed face. Black hair, black eyes burning like a furnace. We circled each other, weighing each other up like panthers. My bare feet crunched on glass and wooden splinters, but I didn’t dare glance down. His lithe fists clenched and unclenched, knuckles festooned with swirling tattoos. His body was taut and lean. Made for quick, brutal strikes that would slowly chip away at me if I gave him the opportunity.
Someone above began spraying us with
