He rotates his left arm. "That was sure refreshing."

  He doesn't pay attention to Filip. His real targets are us.

  Melissa's eyes are bloodshot, blood spilling down her nostrils. Her torso pulses heavily. She's still breathing. Her body falls to the ground. She doesn't move.

  The vision I had might turn out to be reality. Even if the context is different from what I thought, she still tried to protect me with her life. That's what it looked like to me.

  The soldier approaches in slow steps. I stand slowly, keeping my eyes fixed on him.

  He's stronger and faster than me. A second of inattention and I'll be knocked out cold.

  I'm lucky Filip isn't one of his targets.

  He disappears from my vision. An uppercut.

  My body flies, my eyes catching the clouds before I fall, slamming my head hard on the ground near Filip.

  I feel like something cracked. My vision is getting blurry.

  Don't tell me I got knocked out by that. Should I see that as something bad?

  I look at Filip. He's screaming something. I can't hear him.

  Speak louder, I say to myself, or perhaps I'm the only one who can hear.

  I'm fading. My pupils dart toward Melissa.

  I'm sorry I was of no use.

  Then everything turns black.

  Melissa's Perspective:

  It's dark.

  My body feels numb. I can barely feel it.

  I lowered my guard there. It's unfortunate.

  I open my eyes. The smell of blood and dust mingles around me. Everest is lying on the ground just like me. Filip tries to wake him up in vain.

  The soldier approaches them. "You there. Go back to your home. It'll be easier for me to take care of you."

  "Why did you do that?!" Filip protests.

  "Uh? It's simple. Look at this place. Everything suggests elite fighters caused this mess."

  "What do you mean?"

  "Can't you see? This incident only happened after the recruitment started. There was an incident of a participant killing a supervisor after getting eliminated. This could've been an act of frustration." He squats down, facing Filip deep in the eyes. "To top it off, you guys were the only people present here. Quite suspicious, don't you think? So I'll tell you this just one last time. Get away from here right now before I change my mind."

  Filip freezes. "You say that, but there was no need to hit them that way. So why be so cruel?"

  "Kid, you ask too many questions. It's simple. I just like all this violence. It makes me feel my salary is well earned rather than being paid to do nothing."

  I stand up with difficulty. My energy still struggles to return. When fully up, Filip's face changes. The soldier turns his head to look at me.

  "So that's why you attacked us, huh?"

  "Look who came back to us. I thought you went out cold with that one. A sign I'm losing my touch." He gets up before walking toward me.

  "I felt it well, man. You're just not on that level yet. Filip, run with Everest. Things are about to get dirty here." I grin.

  Filip nods and executes, struggling to carry Everest out of here. The soldier doesn't move.

  "Why don't you go after them?" I ask.

  "Despite my confidence, I know if I look away, you'll take advantage of it. Also, you got up from the punch I gave you despite it being charged, and that smile on your face creeps me out."

  "Then smile as well, or what are you hiding under that mask?"

  Unauthorized content usage: if you discover this narrative on Amazon, report the violation.

  "All you have to do is take me down to discover for yourself." He charges at me.

  "Then so be it." I charge at him too.

  He strikes me on the left. I barely block. The impact of the punch is heavy, causing me to roll against the wall.

  His fist crashes through the wall behind where my head was a heartbeat ago. I'm already spinning, my body low to the cobblestones, sweeping my leg in a wide crescent arc that catches his knee. He doesn't buckle, just grunts and pivots with restrained motion.

  This is bad. He's not affected. I underestimated him. If he turns out to be stronger than anticipated, I'll have to find another way.

  He explodes forward with a straight punch that could crack granite. I sway back, dropping one hand and foot to the ground while extending my other leg out, my body forming a tripod. The punch hisses past my torso. Before he can retract, I hook my extended leg behind his ankle and spiral upward in a one-handed cartwheel, my free heel arcing toward his temple.

  He catches my ankle mid-flight.

  The world inverts as he yanks me from the air and slams me into the ground. Cobblestones crack beneath my shoulders. Pain whites out my vision, but my body takes over. I'm already rolling, transforming his brutal throw into momentum. My hands find a loose rock. I kick off into a backward handspring that puts seven meters between us.

  Blood trickles from my lip. I taste dust and copper. I spit it out.

  He's advancing. "Have I been wrong about you? You're nothing special. Why don't you use your spirit? Let's have some fun." The distance between us narrows.

  I'm closer to the streets. There's nobody around. I find it strange. This place should have at least some peasants out at this time. Never mind. It just serves me well.

  I bounce into my fighting rhythm, that fundamental rocking sway, and his eyes track the motion. One-two, one-two. Then I break it, launching into a low spinning kick, my body horizontal to the ground as my leg scythes toward his ankles. He jumps it, comes down with a hammer fist that could split my skull. I roll backward under the blow, feel the wind of its passing, and snap both feet up into his descending chest.

  The kick sends him stumbling into wooden boxes on the street. Apples explode across the ground, rolling red and gold beneath our feet.

  I don't wait. I flow forward in a spinning ground movement, rolling close to the cobblestones, and as I come up, I see his elbow already dropping toward my spine. Too fast. I abort upward into a back handspring, my spine arching as I flip away from the strike. My hands barely touch stone before I'm airborne again, twisting to face him.

  He chuckles. Almost laughing.

  "Good," he says, and launches a feint-jab-cross-hook combination that forces me into a weaving retreat.

  Each punch displaces air like a thunderclap. I slip the cross by a hair's breadth, feel it tug at my collar, but the hook clips my shoulder and spins me halfway around.

  I use the rotation, plant my hands, and drive both heels into his solar plexus with a double-footed thrust. He blocks with his forearms, but I feel him slide back a foot. Then another.

  The watchtower looms to our right, its shadow cutting across the street. I need to change the terrain.

  I transition into a low crouch-walk, bouncing on my palms with my legs coiled beneath me, making myself unpredictable. He shifts to southpaw, adapting. Smart. I feint left with a spinning hook kick, then explode right into the watchtower's shadow, my hands finding the rough stone wall.

  "Running?" he calls out.

  I run up the wall three steps and launch backward in a corkscrew flip, my body spiraling through the air. He raises his guard for a kick, but I'm already past him, landing in a crouch behind his position. Before he can fully turn, I sweep his legs low and fast.

  This time he goes down.

  He rolls with it and comes up swinging. But now we're deeper in the narrow street, where light barely penetrates. Where the space constrains his power but gives my mobility room to sing.

  I flow into continuous motion, rolling, cartwheeling, flipping backward, building a rhythm that turns me into water. He tries to time my patterns, throwing strikes that would end the fight if they connected. An overhand right shatters a section of wall. A left hook demolishes the ground.

  But I'm the tide now, and he's trying to punch the ocean.

  I slip inside his guard during a wild haymaker, plant both palms on his chest, and push off into a backflip that simultaneously creates distance and whips my heel across his jaw. His head snaps back. First blood, his this time dripping from beneath his mask.

  The soldier touches the fabric of his mask, looks at the red on his fingers. Something changes in the way he looks at me. He charges like a bull, and there's nowhere to evade in the narrow street. So I don't evade.

  I drop into a deep squat, crouching so low my hip nearly touches the cobblestone. His momentum carries him over me, and I spring upward, my shoulder driving into his midsection as I rise. I hook my leg behind his, and for a moment we're suspended together. Then physics remembers gravity.

  We crash through a wall together.

  Candles scatter like stars. We're in some place that looks like a shop.

  To think they restrained people this far. The authorities are fearsome.

  He tries to grapple, but I'm already spinning out in an inverted movement, my leg hooking over his shoulder, using his own grip to pull him off-balance. I complete the rotation and drive my heel down toward his face.

  He releases, rolls away. We both come up among the candles, circling in the destroyed shop. Wax crunches beneath our feet.

  "You're better than I thought," he admits, breathing hard. "This year's recruitment isn't that bad."

  "You're exactly what I expected," I reply, smiling with bloody teeth.

  I attack with a spinning roundhouse, then chain it into a hook kick, then a rotational hammer strike with my heel, each movement flowing seamlessly into the next. He blocks, parries, evades, but I'm not trying to hit him. I'm herding him now, driving him back toward the shop's support column.

  He realizes too late.

  His back hits the wooden beam and I'm already airborne, my hands finding his shoulders, using him as a platform to flip over and behind. As I pass over his head, my leg whips down in a straight thrust that strikes the back of his knee. He buckles forward and I land, immediately flowing into a wide spinning kick that catches him in the temple with my heel.

  He drops.

  Not unconscious, but on one knee, shaking his head. I settle into my swaying stance above him, ready to continue, but he raises one hand.

  "I really hoped not to go this far against a woman," he says.

  "What do you mean?"

  "I admit you're better than me when it comes to straight fighting. But how about when we add a decisive variable?" He grins.

  A grey aura surrounds him. I see a flash.

  I'm ejected as the shop explodes.