Jay didn’t think his scream would reach his mouth, but it came out loud and clear. The vibrations in his neck told him that his throat was still intact, somehow. He wanted to clutch it, grasp at it, in case it spontaneously decided to reopen.

He couldn’t.

An invisible force shunted Jay out of the ring. He looked up at his reflection returning to a fighting stance, completely forgetting his presence.

Panting heavily, enjoying the powers of a hole-less neck, Jay thought about what just happened. He’d just died, right? He felt the steel go through his throat. He saw the blood fly out of his body. Yet here he was, lying on the cavern floor next to a bloodless ring.

So, he didn’t die?

It had to be a vision, an illusion of some sort. How else would people from his past be here in the flesh?

That didn’t make it feel any less real.

Relatively confident his neck wouldn’t start leaking blood again, Jay stood up. He stared at his past self in the ring. Blankly focused on an invisible opponent in front of him.

Well, until I step in there again.

Because Jay was going to step in the ring again. He had twenty-three hours and fifty-something minutes to figure out this puzzle. He wasn’t unbeatable. Three boxers had already figured him out before, and a gorilla had come pretty close.

But they all had working arms.

Jay didn’t have a plan the second time he entered the ring, but knew he needed to get used to fighting himself. That familiarity would only come with experience.

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The second fight went almost the same way as the first. Jay had better speed and reflexes than his past self, but it wasn’t enough to bridge the chasm that losing his arms had created. Jay was shepherded to the edge of the ring, unable to seriously threaten his past self.

The fight differed once Jay discovered that he could step out of the ring. These circles didn’t have invisible walls like the newbie arena, and merely stepping out ended the fight. Of course, it meant he didn’t win. But walking backwards was a much more comfortable way to lose than having your throat slit.

Less traumatizing too.

Jay's eyes wandered from his lifeless arms up towards his past self. After twenty-four hours of revelations, followed by twenty-four hours of rest, Jay thought his arms would’ve shown some sign of hope. Hanging heavy and lifeless by his side, they felt as useless as they’d ever been.

How am I supposed to win with no arms?

Jay looked around for inspiration, staring the two fighters he’d just beat.

How would they beat me?

Burns was out of the question. He was a boxer too, and would only attack with his hands. Jay's second opponent had more weapons, maybe Jay could learn from him?

Standing next to the second ring, Jay got a closer look at the fighter. A bear-like blanket of hair covered a pale white chest and the fighter’s back looked at least twice as muscular as Jay's own. A body forged through a lifetime of mauling people to the ground. He had a scruffy brown beard with no moustache and a buzz of shaved hair above it.

One of those scary Russian motherfuckers.

Jay couldn’t just keep calling him the fighter though. If he was to be Jay's training partner, the scary Russian motherfucker needed a scary Russian motherfucking name.

Magomed Magomedovich… Yeah, I think it suits him.

Magomed definitely couldn’t beat Jay in a fight, he was far too slow. But what if he wasn’t?

Jay had the raw power needed to defeat his past self; he just didn’t have the arsenal. He couldn’t learn anything from Magomed going full speed, but what if he slowed down?

What would Magomed do then, and could Jay use it against his past self?

If Magomed was faster than Jay, an advantage Jay held over his past self, what could he do to win the fight?

Jay stepped into the second ring, eager to see what Magomed had in store for him. He activated Eye of the storm and focused on his opponent’s every move.

He didn’t move any faster than a normal human would. There was no point to winning this fight, Jay knew he could do that. He stepped in the ring to learn, and to do that he needed to let his opponent set the pace. Magomed threw a short jab before rushing into a takedown. Jay dodged easily. Learning how to tackle himself was useless, Jay had no arms to grab with.

Returning to the stalemate, Jay hoped Magomed had other ways to initiate an attack.

Jay effortlessly dodged three more tackles. He was beginning to lose hope in his plan, but a change in Magomed’s stance drew him back into the fight. He no longer stood slightly hunched, leaning on his front foot, with his hands by his chin. Now Magomed stood upright, hands outstretched in the air. He’d shifted most of his weight to this back foot.

Interesting, what next?

Magomed threw another short jab. He held this palm out in front of Jay's face. Classic. Jay leaned sideways to give himself a better view. He noticed that Magomed stepped in behind his jab, but not in a normal way. Instead of simply shifting forwards, he rotated his left foot almost ninety degrees outward, opening his hips wide and planting his weight forward. Jay’s focus shifted to his opponent’s right leg. It swung forward, propelled by Magomed’s forward momentum.

How do I defend this?

Jay had seen kicks before, but never targeted at him. Stood across from his opponent now, it didn’t matter how fast he thought, Jay couldn’t tell where his opponents kick was going. He simply didn’t know the difference between how a high, middle, or low kick looked.

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By the time the kicking leg passed the planted one, Jay had figured out it was aimed at his front leg. Magomed was leaning too far forward to be aiming any higher.

With his stormforged body, Jay had the ability to dodge in time. But his past self wouldn’t have that luxury. Instead of dodging, Jay reacted as he would’ve before the gorilla fight. He shifted his weight backwards, leaning onto his back foot.

Jay figured that Magomed’s kick wouldn’t be as effective if he wasn’t planted on his left leg.

The real world had other ideas.

When Magomed’s shin slammed into Jay's calf, he found out that it didn’t matter what the plan was.

Jay's last fight with Magomed showed him the futility of technique in the face of pure might. This one taught him the effectiveness of technique against an equal opponent.

Jay's left foot was swept from underneath him. Since he’d shifted his weight onto the right, Jay wasn’t instantly floored. But his position was still compromised. Magomed didn’t give him time to fully analyse the attack. He rushed in for a punch immediately after his kick landed.

Jay couldn’t do that against his past self, but he could certainly chop at his legs.

It seemed so obvious in hindsight. Of course the best way to attack a boxer was to target the one part of their body that they’d never defended. But Jay had needed an experienced opponent to show him that.

His fight with Magomed hadn’t just revealed a flaw in his fighting style, it had revealed a flaw in his fighting mentality. Jay needed to stop thinking like a boxer and start thinking like a gladiator. He needed to start thinking like someone who could be attacked anywhere, and in any way.

He needed to remember that he could attack like that too.

Jay used his grounded right foot to hop away from Magomed’s jab. It was no use boxing with him in close range. There was nothing to learn there, the gold was in the leg kicks.

When a boxer takes their first step in, most of their weight is on their leading foot. When most of their weight is on their leading foot, it becomes very difficult to move it. This doesn’t usually matter. In a boxing ring, nobody’s attacking their leg. If they wanted to move it, they wouldn’t have planted it that hard. Boxers like Past Jay never had to fight scary Russian motherfuckers like Magomed who would hack at their legs like a cattle rancher in the amazon.

And they definitely never had to fight anything as fast as Jay’s stormforged body.

Jay returned to his fighting stance and dared Magomed to kick him again. One kick was fine, but Jay needed far more to copy it properly.

Another kick came. Jay pushed Eye of the storm to its limit, he studied every atom of his opponent. He needed to extract all the information he could get in order to recreate the attack. Foot position, step speed, hip angle, Jay ignored none of it. He added them all together and tried to cobble a useful attack out of his observations.

After ten more attempts on his calf’s life, Jay felt he was ready to test out the kick. He thanked his illusory training partner with a stamp to the knee and stepped out of the ring. Jay wanted to practice his kick on an easier target first.

Lucky for him, he was standing next to a ring with the world’s most kickable cunt in it.

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Jay stood opposite Burns’ high guard. His opponent was woefully unequipped to defend his legs, and Jay was about to take full advantage of that.

He wanted to start with a probing jab. All good combinations started with a jab and no amount of coliseum fights would ever make Jay think otherwise. His bandaged arms had other ideas, so instead he simply planted his left foot firmly into the gravel, twisted ninety degrees outwards.

It felt weird. Opening up his body so much went against all Jay's instincts. But Jay needed to reject his old instincts and develop some more useful ones.

He wasn’t boxing anymore.

Jay’s right leg swung forward, and he now saw why he needed to open his hips. The twisting brought tension. Tension that was released as soon as his leg swung forward. It wasn’t just Jay's leg propelling the kick, but his whole body.

The compression and expansion within the kicking motion wasn’t lost on Jay, but he didn’t try to channel thunder through his kicks yet.

One step at a time. Focus on the motion first.

Easier said than done. Jay had intended to strike Burns’ calf with his shin, but instead he ended up slapping his limp foot into his opponent’s knee.

Jay could have learned a new punching technique in minutes. But in the last twenty-five years he’d never moved his legs like this. He had no frame of reference to compare himself to. Even with Eye of the storm helping him analyse every move, Jay found it difficult to notice where he was going wrong. If it weren’t for his stormforged body aligning his mind and muscles together, Jay didn’t know how long it would have taken him to master this one attack.

But with each imperfect kick, Jay learned more. He’d even found ways to improve Magomed’s technique, or at least adapt it to his style. No two people had the same body, so no two people would attack the same way. What worked for one person might be useless for another. The trick to learning a technique was to dissect it into parts, and only steal what applied to you.

And steal Jay did.

For the next thirty minutes, Jay constantly swapped between the first two rings. Analysing in one, experimenting in the other, until he felt confident to take on his past self again.

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Past Jay’s guard shifted as soon as Jay stepped into the ring. He dropped his hands lower, not needing to defend against punches from an armless opponent. No amount of guard lowering would protect his legs though.

Both fighters activated Eye of the storm at the same time. Jay watched the blue sparks trail his mirror’s irises as he initiated the tactical battle. Jay waited for his opponent to strike first and plant pressure on his lead leg. Even though Jay was the faster fighter, without arms to bother his opponent he was predictable. With Eye of the storm running, Past Jay could easily predict the leg kick. Jay had to wait for his moment. He had to wait until his attack was undodgeable.

This fight started just as poorly as the first two. There was nothing Jay could do but backpedal to avoid the relentless punches coming his way. Still, he bided his time and waited for the opportunity to present itself. Past Jay wouldn’t be watching for leg kicks, so he’d surely leave openings without realising.

When they neared the edge of the ring, Past Jay went in for the kill.

Now!

Jay twisted his front foot outwards, not as much as Magomed initially did, Jay didn’t need to for his attack. He leaned back slightly and released his right leg.

Past Jay didn’t know how to respond. Trapped inside an inexperienced body, wondering how to escape, unsure whether to keep pressing on or abort the attack completely.

Jay’s kick came in faster than Past Jay could even hope to counter. That only left retreat.

But he had too much weight on his front foot.

Eye of the storm was rendered useless. Just like in his fight against the gorilla, Past Jay's body simply couldn’t keep up with his mind.

It’s a lot nicer being on the giving end of that problem.

The savage crunch of a shattered kneecap made Jay wince as he watched his old self crumple to the ground. It was far less satisfying breaking his own legs after ten rounds of chopping at Burns’.

The power in Jay's kicks was undeniable. Sure, his technique was sub-par. But Jay had already learned that pure power made up for a lot of things and finesse was often one of them. The vibrating energy locked within the cells of his stormforged body yearned to unleash their might. Jay's shin channelled it with devastating impact.

Jay backed off and watched his past self scramble on the ground, unable to stand on his feet.

Stop being a baby, three limbs is plenty! Heckled a rather morbid voice in the back of Jay's mind. He gained no pleasure from watching himself suffer on the ground, so Jay finished the fight off with another kick, this time targeted at Past Jay's ribs.

He got an arm in the way. It didn’t matter. The fight was over.

Victory. 3/4.

Jay left the ring and looked towards where the next ring would appear.

He didn’t know what the trial would throw at him next, but it couldn’t be more unexpected than fighting against himself.

He watched the gravel circle materialise above the rocks, watched the air shimmer into an iridescent barrier as his next opponent took shape in the middle of the circle.

It was another boxer. Kind of.

Inside his wrapped fists was a gold-hilted dagger. He wore white shorts with a shiny gold trim.

No. Fuck off.

He had a bigger frame than Jay, even though it wasn’t fully filled in yet. He might still have been a teenager.

No don’t make me fucking do this.

His face looked younger, more innocent than Jay remembered. But the resemblance was still there.

His black hair was styled in the exact same way as Jay's.

Or rather, Jay's was styled in the exact same way as his opponent’s.

Jules?