You know that feeling when you’re at the top of your game, on the only stage that matters, the lights are on, everyone is watching, and the only thought running through your head is, I got this? You’re so far in the zone you’re not even thinking it. You’re feeling it. Feeling the eyes, the held breaths, the stream cams, the tension in the air that’s got everyone on the edge of their toes, you most of all. Everyone is watching. And you’re just getting started.
That’s me.
Fluorescent spotlights burn my skin like sunlight. Jamming retro music pounds louder than my heartbeat as it pours out of beat-up stereos older than the gym I’m in. A bell hammers. The answering roar is electric, kinetic. Pushing me back to my feet under the weight of a hundred physical eyes and a thousand digital ones. Every fistfighter in the building quit their workouts to crowd around the rope-ringed fighting square I stand on. A sea of familiar faces corrals the sides of my vision, nothing but sweat-stained sandstone lies before me.
The murmurs rise as I sag against the ropes. Hands wrapped in white and knuckles bloody red, a darker shade of crimson than the mane that rages to my shoulders. Flicks of hair undulate in the current of burning aura surrounding me; a physical manifestation of the fury churning inside my heart. One snap redoubles the flames. The college crowd roars again as I wipe the back of my wrist over my mouth and push away from the ropes with a wild grin, ignoring the corner jockey trying to give advice. She’s all frame data and spacing and logic. There’s a time and place for those. Now, like every time I square up, it’s about heart.
It’s always about heart. Especially when you’re facing down the rival that’s been keeping one step ahead of you the entire semester, he’s got an even cockier look on his face, and there’s only a single bruise marring his cheek.
The blade in Ajax’s hand tips forward in salute, stunning edge casting blue-hot hues over a long braid of golden hair. “You really want to do this again?”
I glance to my left, to the scoreboard mounted high on the brick wall. Oldtech, not JOY-powered, tells the story of how my afternoon’s been going since I walked into the gym and saw the top-ranked prince of the top-ranked university wandering around like a schoolkid at the Metro Blockhouse. It’s round ten and I’m already down nine-oh.
My head cocks to the side as I shrug, grinning wider. “What’s one more?”
My fingers curl into fists as I sink into stance. Left low near the belt, right high near the chest. One leg forward. Hips sideways. Handwraps stretching over my knuckles. Another surge of kinetic aura ignites around me and sets the spotlights swinging, spilling sharp-edged shadows across the crowd. They eat it up and shout their derision for the fencer who strolled into a martial artist’s gym looking to start trouble. I’m fighting for their pride as much as I’m fighting for my own.
The music cranks louder, reverberating through the concrete. My corner jockey covers her face and slides down beside the ring. The bell hammers loudly, splintering through the tumult. Again, the roars build. Again my heart beats faster, shocking my nerves with adrenaline. Tired muscles reinvigorate themselves as the energy surrounding me redoubles, then triples, building to cyclonic intensity. The numbers of our fight’s stream continue to skyrocket.
I’m closer than I’ve ever been to beating Ajax. Last round I left him with a bruise that he’s still seething over. There’s no difference in fighting here on a scuffed square at a backstreet gym or on gleaming chrome in the university district. We’re rivals no matter where we meet. Fistfighting showstopper against jaw-dropping duelist.
The crowd is ready. The lights are on, blinding my eyes with retro intensity. Everyone is watching. And there’s only one feeling singing through my nerves.
I got this.
-
“…but man, I did not have it.”
One by one, I peel bloody strips of tape off of my hands, dropping them into a wastebasket that’s made itself a rather comfortable home beside my apartment’s couch. Evening sunlight streams through the open balcony door to my left, filling the living space with autumn color. Soon, dusk will fade and neon brilliance will replace it. Already I can see rainbow hues leaking out of the darkest alleys below.
Cold wind whistles quietly as it ripples over the gleaming metropolis that stretches from window to window. Sounds of the city drift up the highrise, the noise of fifteen million people leaving work and firing up their JOY spheres at once. My own floats on the table between me and a dimmed screen hanging across the room; a palm-sized ball of metal no larger than my hand. Wavering, electric-blue projections cascade outwards from the JOY in a conical stream, responding to my swipes as I search for one of the dozen recordings taken of my earlier fight. Anything with Ajax in it is guaranteed to flash straight to the top of the university discussion boards. And these days, even clips of his uneventful wins can make it onto the news streams during speculation segments on up-and-coming fighters, after pro league coverage is finished for the night.
I can’t help the chuckle that escapes me when the recording jumps straight to the end of our fifteenth round. The scoreboard in the corner of the frame is already changing from 14-0 to 15-0 before I finish tripping on a hairline crack in the concrete. To be fair, I recovered in two frames. Two sixtieths of a second. But two frames are all it takes to separate the best from the second-best.
This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.
“You know,” I call over to the kitchen, eyebrows narrowing at the amount of muttering emerging from its depths. “I almost had him in the eighteenth. He was moving slower. Missing blocks, trying to read me instead of reacting. Maybe I should try challenging him to a marathon before our next match.”
Two small hands lift a huge pot up onto the counter overlooking the living room and slam it down with an emphatic thump. Crimson hair done up in an angry ponytail rises above the pot, crowning the slim face of a girl with pale skin and aristocratic cheekbones that hide behind an old-fashioned set of spectacles. Her dark blue eyes glare down at the pot like it’s a blank midterm paper the night before it’s due.
“Didn’t have it,” my twin sister growls again, stirring the pot to death. “Didn’t have it! Haha!” Her focus locks onto me from across the room as she throws her hands up, ponytail bouncing furiously. “Forgetting a pen is not having something, Mars. Getting your ass handed to you by Ajax for the eighth time this month isn’t.”
“Ninth,” I correct. “You weren’t there for the time in Cayman’s.”
“Even better! Let me guess, he invited you to dinner, said it would be a date to die for.”
I lean back on the couch, arms crossing defensively. “I was waiting for you to get off work, actually.”
She groans loudly and shoves her ladle to rest in the pot. “You’re tanking your rank and destroying any chance at getting ahead of him on the boards every time you pull a stunt like today! You do know that you have to have a positive round record on him to get first seed, right?”
The earlier travesty plays again in the projection on mute, this time dissected by a pair of analyst-track uni students. One of them almost falls from his seat as he begins laughing.
“Jolie…”
“Don’t Jolie me,” she snaps, stalking over and taking a seat on the low table. My JOY’s projection fizzles and sparks as it tries to digest the new shape interdicting its path, dissolving like snowflakes at the edge.
She takes one of my callused hands in both of hers, fingers prying at the bloody tape. “We’re a team, Mars. It’s you and me against the world. Remember?”
I close my eyes and let out a long, quiet breath. “Yeah. I remember.”
“You’re the throne. I’m what’s behind it.”
“…and we’re going to be kings,” I say, quietly finishing our mantra.
Together, we look out the balcony and over the sunset metropolis beyond. The hub of our fighting world rises like a metal mecca from the city, reflecting the sun’s fading rays with blinding brilliance. In the shadow of that tower, a dark cabinet blocks our view just inside the balcony doorway. Atop it rests a small wood-framed print of a red-haired family of three. Ludicrously expensive in a digital age. But you can’t run your fingers over pixels.
“Set records reset every month,” I say, trying to lighten the mood. “Give it a few days. I’ll study up on his new patterns, watch some replays, and start the month off right.”
“You always say that.”
“I mean it this time.”
Jolie snorts and rips the last of the tape from my knuckles. I hiss in pain, jerking my hand back like it’s touching fire.
“You want to know why you lost the opening rounds?” she says, taking control of my JOY’s projection. Her fingers dance quickly through the air, navigating the menus with the quick swipes of a digital native. She searches up the clearest footage of the fight and skips around quickly before freezing at an early bell drop. The stream rolls. “Round three. Back-to-front ki gathering sweep with an open hand to get more power. It’s too slow of an option. A point charge would have been better- it doesn’t matter how hard you hit Ajax, you just need to start hitting him.”
She flicks a finger. The set count shifts in the corner. “Round four. You lose your mojo and start trying all sorts of wild options when he walls you out with standard defense.” Another flick. “Five and six: you’re just throwing the book at him to try and break him open. Ajax drills. He knows his limits. You’re flashy, Mars, but it always goes like this if you don’t roll someone from the start. It takes more than heart to win.”
I raise an eyebrow at her tone. “Did you burn what you were cooking?”
She sighs. “Maybe.”
“Classes busy?”
“I skipped lab as soon as you messaged.”
That would explain the disorganized strands of hair escaping her ponytail. For once, her formal shirt is wrinkled and rolled to the elbows, its usual meticulous ironing forgotten. Jolie will never admit it aloud, but she carries more of the stress between us. Someone needs to reign in her perfectionist streak and take the burdens from time to time. And tonight, that’s her twin brother’s job.
While she’s still lost in gazing at the frozen projection, I reach forward and steal the hairtie holding her ponytail in place, sliding it around my own wrist. Her hair immediately spills down her back. A snap of my fingers shuts down the glowing screen and calls my JOY back to my hand.
“Let’s get dinner out,” I say, shoving the sphere into my pocket. “My treat.”
I’m pushing her towards the door before she can protest. She’d spend all night at home surrounded by ones and zeroes if she had a choice. While Jolie grabs a coat from our shared closet, I slip on an old pastel bomber jacket from a company that first made its name in the camera business, back when cameras still existed. I finish rewrapping my hands with antibac tape just as she comes out in wool and dark denim, hair already tied back up.
Jolie calls out as I step out onto the balcony. “Not taking the stairs?”
I shoot a grin back at her and run a hand through my mane, letting the breeze blow it out to its full length. “When have I ever?”
She’s already ducking out the door. All it takes is two casual, backpedaling steps to start my descent. One to reach the balcony railing. The second to tip over backwards, eyes closed to the fifteen-story drop and electric city waiting below. Cold air roars past my ears. I fall with my hands in my pockets, sitting in a hammock of gravity. The supernatural abilities bestowed by my JOY flood to the surface once more as shimmering heat prickles my skin. A single drop of sweat beads on the tip of my nose.
My eyes snap open.
And silhouetted by the sunset, I ignite.