Life still hurt. I was bleeding profusely, again, but I smirked and fought back.
Yes. Living was painful, but over time I grew determined to fight forever, because I had finally realized a deeper truth: Even a peaceful life well lived is gonna hurt badly, at times. It is an inescapable fact due to the very nature of living, you’re forced to face the conflict which encompasses us all. The blade of grass fights each day to reach the sun. The puppy-dog fights for its mothers teat.
Then to be a fighter to your core requires daily work for months on end, it is a mindset of learning true commitment towards doing everything within your power to rise further each year. To stay moving ahead. From the time you wake, to the time when your eyes rest, you put that energy to use for your goals.
In spite of this truth my words may fall on deaf ears. The spirit of youth appears to have been euthanized at times, long before my message could reach out. Maybe you never considered yourself a fighter? Yet you wish to wake to see another sun, to have more choices left to make. So, you are fighting daily already, simply by lurking around; extending your stay. That existence defines you.
Whether you like it or not, whether you acknowledge it, when life starts hurting, the only useful choice left is to fight back, otherwise you are losing rounds willingly. Another one, each day.
You do not consider yourself a fighter? – Hah. For countless people, this daily refusal to fight, the refusal to simplify matters until they benefit their existence with every breath, is nothing short of an ever deepening travesty, of a kind which can be resisted in only one way – let your days of fighting back commence. Or will you do worse than a blade of grass?
- BKFC Champion Khazan ‘Gray Wolf’ Sharipov
That was it. That’s how the book ended.
What the shit, there’s not a single page of actual fight analysis. Did Khazan hire a ghostwriter?
Damon sighed.
I’m betting he did.
[NEXT STOP: The Sickle Bay Business Center]
The next station was announced as the effortless-looking young man finished reading and downed the last bitter dregs in his morning cup of coffee, reflecting for a sec over what he’d just been hammered with, before exiting the slow moving tram mid-journey.
Whether you like it or not, whether you acknowledge it.
Wouldn’t have expected those words out of the ‘Gray Wolf’, of all people. That was in spite of how the man showed off a surprisingly good vocabulary at times, mostly during his championship interviews. But anyone can read off a script.
Damon walked off the end of the platform with his hands pocketed firmly in his red jacket, and proceeded to hop down the stairs three at a time—ignoring the lingering pain in his legs—landing smoothly each step with the other foot raised high, looking like a certain dapper frog. An obsolete training exercise, nowadays simply a habit.
So, now the world champion was hawking a book, one meant to inspire hordes of newly minted BKFC fans—mostly in the form of rabid WWE converts, Sports Nowadays Are Too Soft-enthusiasts, and Gamers in general—to all take up martial arts and start fighting for real. Supposedly, Damon was in the target demographic, except for how he was already a lifelong member and could spot the repackaged dojo wisdom coming from miles away.
He’d still fallen for it long enough to buy the book though.
Swing and a miss. Damon was only feeling scammed since he’d picked it up hoping to either gain some insights into Khazan’s most famous fights, or to maybe find some new technique or training to try out. Something tangible. Not a bunch of motivational ramblings, like he wasn’t already waking up as early as possible every day to work his ass off.
All Damon wanted was some vague idea or clue pointing him towards something, anything that might provide an edge to someone in Damon’s specific situation…
Damon had lost his 2nd pro kickboxing fight just this past weekend, meaning he’d been genuinely hoping for some rare tips and tricks out of the ’Russian King of the Mountain’.
‘Train all day, every day’ hardly qualifies for advice unless you’re an orphaned youth stuck in a friggin’ experimental state-sponsored Olympics program… Some of us have to work for a living, damn it… even that name’s just another cheap knockoff.
Khazan was not actually a real Russian, but evidently the ‘Former Chechnyan Child Soldier’ doesn’t hold quite the same ring to the global PPV crowd. Better to picture him having come down from a mountain fully formed, they figured. So, they can be romantics. Imagine that.
Granted, Damon losing was no huge surprise. Damon was 0-2 now, and had been going up as a last-minute replacement for whoever it was that pulled out against the reigning champion of ‘Road to BKFC’—Basically the real BKFC’s Farmer League—Sonny Young. Golden Gloves winner Sonny Young, who was now making a foray into the sport of K1. The rules of the Road were simple, first you earned a championship fight by beating someone impressively, or going the social smedia route, and won the belt. Then you needed to win five times in a row inside a year, and only then would Sonny be fully qualified for the big leagues. He was one fight away now, with having defeated Damon. Honestly bit off more than I was ready to chew with that one.
Heh-hah—ouch.
Chuckling still hurt.
At least he’d lost on points, but it was becoming a bad pattern.
Luckily the damage was not apparent, Damon’s face remained unblemished despite going all 5 rounds. Lucky, considering he was heading in for his first day at a shiny new job.
I know. Big deal, Damon thought, while putting the book away in his sling bag.
Except his gut was telling him it was, after having relocated across the state, to a city he’d never stepped foot in before, all to stop himself from the too comfortable rut of mooching around at home.
At least exploring a strange city was nothing new. Damon had lost count of the number of towns he’d visited over the past decade for hundreds of spars, matches and tournaments—yet finishing school and moving for work felt completely different, for some reason.
Guess subconsciously I was expecting to still go back home? He’d been trying to analyze the feeling all summer, and today he'd finally settled on a descriptor—awkwardly adult.
He'd bought the cup of joe to match.
Walking towards the looming brick building, Damon’s stomach rumbled, making him queasy as he looked toward the new workplace where he’d be spending long, static days for the foreseeable future. Maybe I shouldn’t be doing this after all. Not unless I wanna spend the rest of my life feeling like a coward, and a loser. At least in the ring, where it matters.
Standing outside the building as he was, Damon felt painfully aware of the sunken cost fallacy, and how this was only his first step out of many, into an infamous quagmire called responsibilities, adulthood and possibly even worse—comforts.
Everyone knew about how that sort of thing led to stagnation, to abandoning the spartan way, to teaching your mind to have standards and expectations other than pain and the bliss of victory, all leading you subtly to a more content, boring life. It was that sinister process which time and time again made the rich champions fall, and the hungry challengers rise.
This did not feel right. This felt like the path to a life of never finding out your full potential.
Despite doing the normal thing and spending years upon years in schooling, Damon remained deeply dubious of his staked out path in life. Even after having finally made plans to move out and go to college, he’d become increasingly uncertain whether or not committing to a career outside fighting would mean he’d be destined to turn into one of those people who one day snapped, finding it was far too late to do anything like what he’d always dreamed of. Like spending his days becoming his very strongest self, in every way. Possibly the strongest fighter there has ever been, ever, and getting to travel the globe to prove it.
Who has ever been better positioned after all, with so much knowledge at their beck and call. So much nutrition, data and even access to previously hidden or undiscovered techniques?
Having remained undefeated for years at a time as an amateur, Damon had begun feeling like a conqueror reborn. Then when you risked it all and lost, it was easy to see how such dreams were cheap. Highs like that were few and far between, especially these days. That’s why it remained a childhood dream, if one he’d never seen the need to fully let go of; rather it grew closer and closer within reach as he was growing up, right until he had to make the decision to finish his degree.
Damon stood tall at 6”5—the product of his last ever growth spurt at 23 years old, while being well-muscled and lean with it. Mostly owing to his martial arts background in Taekwondo… which meant he was still a tiny little shit compared to the true giants. The major difference; how despite his size Damon remained as limber as a dancer, as fast and enduring as a football player, all while being a member of the 1000-pound club despite weighing in just below 200 pounds on an average day. Within middleweight that kind of mobility, wiry strength and explosive speed could sorely be matched, not without a vast gap in experience.
Yes, true. He was only a middleweight. And it was widely recognized how the heavyweights were the true, old kings of the sport. The veritable Rex of the modern fighting world. But in real life? Lay in wait and add a stick, even a rock to the equation? Suddenly those extra 100 pounds barely did anything but slow you down. The safety controlled sport side of things was just the fun part, for the fans. The instincts and skills you honed in the gym were much more than that. They were your essence.
Damon grew convinced since childhood that he had the grit, physicality, pain tolerance—not to mention the fight IQ—to compete with anybody, to reach the very top; maybe he only lacked the will, the dastardly guts to really go for it, to truly commit with no limitations?
At times none of those talents seemed to matter, out in the real world. Broke and indecisive, it became all too easy to move down the path staked out in advance for you by your mother. You couldn’t exactly deny the value of a good education without facing excommunication, not when your own mother’s a private school principal.
—“Who's ever dumb enough to decline a scholarship, including room and board!?” —After all.
Now here he was, five years down the line. Ready to get a real, adult life started. Ready. Super ready.
At least he’d dodged the stereotype of following in his father’s footsteps and becoming a traveling field geologist. No sir, I fought hard and became an archaeometallurgy researcher instead. Take that for teenage defiance, dad! Ha-ha… yeah, I suck.
A deeply distracted Damon had gotten off the tram at the Sickle Bay Business Center, and was now making the short walk over to where he was about to start spending the majority of his waking life.
He hesitated just outside the blue double doors, hands on the handle.
Only to get rudely pushed back, when the doors swung open the other way.
“Do you mind?” A gray-haired and mustachioed man was moving briskly out of the building, looking annoyed at Damon for having halted in such a moronic spot.
Damon was in his own world and hardly listening, but still noted the whispered: “Prick.” Uttered under the man’s breath as he walked off.
Back in the day, he would’ve almost certainly responded, loudly, with a big smile on his face; gleefully inviting the potential confrontation that simple words could bring. Nowadays Damon’s tongue was equally tied as when he was very little—before he’d realized that he lost his father, back when he believed that every adult was a secret black belt—but only because responding like a delinquent would’ve felt even worse than ignoring the man’s snipe.
Damon fingered his sling bag and checked his phone. 30 minutes. Maybe I have time for a puff or two, although that might make me a little too relaxed.
Instead, to try and get his head in the game, Damon decided he had time before making introductions for a short walk around the building to do his customary checking for emergency exits at a new location—a habit he’d picked up from his favorite book character. Just good common sense, when you really think about it.
The Sickle Bay Business Center was a previous industrial area, a subway offshoot on the up and coming path to becoming neighborhood bourgeois, and it certainly looked the part, but a few of the larger, newly renovated buildings remained empty and were clearly not yet moved into.
When Damon turned the corner he walked right onto a surprising car lot. Is that a P1800 Volvo, a G6 Ford Bronco and a—what the shit?— a Tyler Evans?
Somehow that third one managed to be the most surprising, and evidently the feeling was mutual.
“No way. Is that— Is it actually Bishop? Little Damon Bishop, in the flesh. What the hell are you doing here, I thought it were your pops at first.” Before the words could register he went on. “Still way too short though. I would've figured you and your mother were still living down south?”
“I, we, you—you work here?” Damon was not prepared for talking, nor to face his childhood friend—or did an age gap of 10 years automatically make him a mentor, even if you’d mostly messed around playing racing games?—Rather than await the obvious response Damon started explaining. “Yeah, we do. I mean I do. I mean, I just moved here, for a new job!”
A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.
Tyler clearly didn’t work at the lab, considering how he was wearing such greasy overalls and with an even greasier rag tucked into his pocket. But it was equally difficult picturing him having actually become a regular mechanic.
He eyed Damon up and down in return, looking all spiffy in his red jacket. “Oh shit, you’re headed for the lab upstairs? I should’ve guessed. You probably got finished up in school and set up pretty good by now, huh?”
Which was all it took for Damon to launch into how he’d ended up taking a job in the city without even securing an apartment first, mostly because there was a gym full of kickboxing veterans in the approximate area to sharpen himself against, combined with the sort of career opportunity which his professor, among others already mentioned, had recommended.
As it turns out Tyler didn’t just work at the garage, he actually owned it, and was happy to show Damon how to find his way to the Salcret Labs—pointing out the back exit on a floor plan near the elevator as they went inside and headed up. Damon’s shoulders gradually untensed as he looked around the industrial style lobby when they exited on the 2nd floor. Hey, this looks like it’s renovated too. Nice.
The lobby had no windows, but they were met by a small reception with two chairs and a bench, where you could simply press a red button on a table, one that lit a green lamp on the wall, which evidently meant someone would come get you shortly.
“I’ll leave you to it, but come meet me for lunch later and we can catch up.” A wave, and then he was gone.
Like that Damon was left sitting alone on a padded bench, staring at the beckoning exit. Luckily he wasn’t left there to think for very long, and was promptly greeted by the very man he’d been having video call interviews with for the past few months.
“Ah—Damon,” They shook hands. Right, soft. “You’re here early. Great to finally meet face to face. You’ve already signed the NDA, so I figured we’d focus on just showing you around for now, let you get a firsthand look at all the tasks we’ve had you in mind for. Then, once you’re sure of what you’re committing to—then we can finalize the onboarding with you meeting Sam over at HR, get that trial work agreement signed. No need to worry, by that point your every question will have been answered. And you’re gonna love Sam!”
The man named Tom Green gave him a charming smile, then turned and walked back inside the lab. The guy really sold the image of the middle-aged lead researcher, sporting his lab coat and fashionable glasses, but it was the confidence that Damon would follow right along that really got him through that door.
That could be me, in a few years.
Shudder.
Once inside, it was all over. They walked by several offices to introduce Damon to the crew. First he met the man who he’d be replacing eventually, their one and only expat in the form of Jiro Kenpachi, who naturally went by Ken while in the states. Despite going on 75-years old, he greeted Damon with a straight back and warm smile. Apparently the ancient scholar had moved out of Japan to the US of his own accord, all to escape his semi-forced retirement. He looked tremendously fit for his age, but Damon was used to seeing that in fellow martial artists of the old school variety. Apparently the man was a renowned karateka, and the one who’d been swinging the experimental gear around for the team up to this point. Dude’s either a freak of nature, or he’s on that anti-age testosterone regimen.
Next they went by the offices of one Sarah Hyland according to the name plate attached to the door, only to find her missing. Tom wasted no time heading back to Ken's, and sure enough they must have somehow missed her by taking the direct route. This dude knows his staff, figured where to find her straight away. Oh, and they’re going at it. Fight, fight.
She was a woman in her early thirties, with light-brown eyes and long auburn hair, plus the same white coat as the others, but wearing far nicer, casual jeans underneath.
Currently she was laying into the old man, who was pointedly ignoring her while appearing to be carefully poring over some paper reports, and sipping his steaming tea. "You think we wouldn't notice, really Ken? You know your turn is coming up, and we're gonna send you the results, so what's the damn hurry?"
The old man winced a little at the cursing, but kept his face stoic as he responded. "I simply state the merits of my case."
"Bumping your Beralumin version to the top of the pile isn't arguing your case, it's just jumping the line, and I think you know that, Ken."
Tom interrupting and introducing Damon was noted without missing a beat, the two barely allowing for the intruders to slow the conversation.
Apparently Ken was going back to Japan for an extended vacation soon, to attend his granddaughter's wedding, among other duties.
Sarah meanwhile was in charge of deciding whichever version of their experimental metal to start testing on next. She had a system, consisting of a pile of reports on her desk, which was apparently left unattended every evening.
Solid system.
Damon learned all the details from Tom’s whispered commentary, before the two sneakily backed away again.
Next there was the twin offices of the person who Damon was apparently going to be working closest with. To reach her, they first had to go through one more regular office stocked with shelves full of scale models of sci-fi spaceships and anime characters, posters and other fandom collectibles, into another workshop that was equally chaotic with workbenches covered in tools and stocked shelves filled with gadgets, gizmos and schematics.
Abigail Soto was a proud 4"11, and when Damon entered the room she looked up at him with an exaggerated lean, like he was a giant towering in the distance. Apparently he was standing a bit too close, and with his face up high at an uncomfortable angle.
He smiled awkwardly. "Oops. I’m six foot five."
“Pretty skinny for a tall guy.” And that was all she said in terms of an introduction, before getting right back to work.
His smirk vanished and he looked to Tom. “Hey, not fair. It’s all lean, highly functional muscle!” He hated how defensive his voice sounded, despite stating facts.
Tom just gave him a reassuring pat on the back and left them to it.
Abi was the resident robotics engineer, and evidently she wasn’t allowed to climb the cluttered top shelves anymore, because of insurance, since she tended to throw things up there until they somehow balanced. For the moment she looked to be struggling with tightening some nuts and bolts, and apparently a tall assistant was just the thing. “Imma need you to bring down the single bank box that I put up there last week,” She pointed. ”And then you can start jotting notes, whenever I call out.”
Damon was surprised at getting put to work so abruptly at first, and it certainly required some very decent effort to bring the huge chunk of iron down from the top shelf, but Abi took the display of strength in stride, simply walking up to grab a wrench from the bottom drawer before telling him where to put it down, which made it easy to follow her lead and treat the exercise like the teaching moment it was clearly meant to be. In terms of lecturers? I’ve had worse.
That’s how Damon spent his first real hour at work. Bringing Abi tools and jotting down measurements, while watching the back of her blonde pixie haircut.
It turned out this work thing was sort of easy, since the rest of the introductions—and then lunch at Mama Gio’s with Tyler—all flew past in a breeze. Either that, or they ease you in. Then later, once the contract is signed, WHAM.
He even managed to secure a spot on Tyler’s couch, instead of having to put up at a motel while he hunted for apartments. But rather than spotting any sort of sinister undercurrents once they got back to the office in the afternoon, as it turns out Tom had been saving the best for last.
The whole reason why Damon had chosen to apply for this particular lab, despite being somewhat underqualified, was all because of the mention of ‘Experience with Medieval Weaponry Required’ at the top of the advertisement. Later, in the final stages of interviews, he’d found out about the metal they were working on developing, or its specific purpose rather. The substance was named Beralumin, and when Tom had finally gotten past the list of technical details and glossing over all the redacted elements contained in the intermetallic compound, it left Damon with one single thought blazing in his mind: Holy shit, Wolverine!?
What they were working on was supposed to be unprecedented, a metal that could do it all, meant to revolutionize not just their armaments but robotics as a whole. Some of the elements contained in the alloy remained classified, and far above Damon’s non-existent clearance, but that could mean all sorts of things, from the elements being tremendously rare and expensive, to being dangerously cheap and common.
The bottom line was how they were making military grade attachments to remote-controlled robots specifically designed for close-quarters infiltration of every kind. The ridiculously durable metal had inherent anti-static, anti-radar and temperature resistant properties upped to ridiculous degrees already, now they were simply looking to perfect the already impressive edge retention for the next round of attachments, as the current grant was focused on developing the metal alloy which would be used for the robot’s weaponry, with a different version already perfected for the lighter finishing coats.
When Tom unlocked the doors and showed Damon into The Armory, he actually felt like a kid whose dog had just gotten an unexpected litter of puppies for Christmas. Along the walls were swords, maces, spears and even axes, all of different makes and models. Some looking straight out of fantasy, while others were clearly military designs. Holy shit, they’ve got a friggin' flamberge.
When Tom saw him hesitantly approaching several choices, he simply shook his head and laughed. “Go ahead Damon, you’ll get to use them all eventually, this is why you were picked despite lacking a PHD after all, we badly need someone like Ken who knows how to put real force behind the blows, and for more than ten minutes, and without ruining their hands.”
Damon didn’t quite get what he meant at first, but when he saw the target things became more clear. Rather than chopping wood or anything sensible, these robots were meant to break into secure buildings and penetrate straight past base defenses. Their weaponry needed to remain durable no matter what task they were given, and so the target of these prototypes was a clearly reinforced titanium plinth, standing scarred in the middle of the smaller concrete sideroom.
Oh yeah, wow. That’s gonna be rough on the hands. But so fun!
Damon went and grabbed a poleaxe off the rack and looked for the go ahead, then went mad and started swinging. The axe blade’s bite felt incredible. The weapon was far lighter than equivalent steel but still had a proper heft to it, and it was just unflappable. After working the kinks out of his technique for almost an hour, once his body started complaining via leftover bruises from the match throbbing, Damon finally let up to review the resulting damage on his chosen tool of destruction: unblemished—
—while the disfigured plinth had new scars all over. The metal slab had a chip inside which measured the force of every blow, reporting the results on a nearby screen, and apparently Damon had performed admirably. Hell, yeah.
When he saw how Ken had joined the watchers he couldn’t help but throw him a challenging glance when their eyes met, only to break into a goofy smile to show it was meant in jest. The whole exercise left him feeling like he just might have ended up in the right place after all. Recalling the morning’s trepidation almost felt silly now that he’d met up with the whole team. Oh shit, we get paid for this too. That’s right.
Then again, the consequences for his training remained as real as ever. I’ll need to save up, turn my vacations into shorter sabbaticals and start working on a long-term solution. But hey, at least I’ll be getting plenty of exercise at work.
Everything was really lining up, and he could very much use the money. Going begging to his mother hurt, even if she had a cushy job, and loved to help. She had a dolce vita of her own to pay for, her own ambitions. So, in the end Damon took the plunge and let Tom know he was in.
“That’s great Damon. Sam had to leave early but he’ll be here tomorrow, so you can just sign everything in the morning.”
They shook hands again, more firmly this time.
The lab closed up for the day, and they started heading for the doors. Which was when the clock struck six, and coincidentally the Earth did something it never had before. Certainly not in Damon’s lifetime. It stopped for a second. A long one.
Everything went strangely quiet, until all Damon could hear was his own heartbeat.
[Initial planetary scanning analysis… Completed.]
[Celestial candidate for Integration detected.]
[Welcome to the Hidden Megaverse Realm.]
...
A voice had spoken, somehow not out loud. Damon, Abi and the others exchanged confused looks, but found they could not move anything else.
[Planet Terra scanning sheet: A-grade quality mass. C-grade size. D-grade esthetics. Ungraded energy. Diversity among sapients: Austere.]
[Calculating adjustments for optimal Integration…]
...
I feel fine—except why aren’t my lungs moving?
Damon awaited the voice’s calculations with bated breath, having no idea what was happening.
[Initiating populace processing for Integration.]