Lindy walked back to the booth, leading Yoli and Caroline while Dee tagged along.

  “So Caroline, how long are you going to be on station for?” Lindy asked.

  “I think we are leaving in a couple days, is that right, Yoli?” Caroline answered, looking at her daughter.

  “Yeah, you are going home the day after the draft.” Yoli said.

  “Oh, great! I’m sure Nate would love to hear you and your husband will be around for a little while longer. Maybe us girls can go to Cat’s for dinner one night.” Lindy added.

  “What is Cat’s?” Caroline asked with a confused look.

  “The Cat’s Meow is a women's-only restaurant and bar that Dee and I go to in order get away from the boys sometimes.”

  “Why would you want to get away from my Nathan?” Caroline snipped.

  Lindy’s heart sank at the misstep, wondering how she would recover.

  “Oh c’mon Mom, give her a break.” Yoli stepped in.

  “Oh, I’m just kidding, sweetie, I’m sorry, I’m having a little fun. I remember what it was like to meet Dave’s Mother. She said things like that, but she wasn’t kidding.”

  Caroline laughed it off. Lindy’s heart started to come back up to its rightful place in her chest, her anxiety easing.

  “Sounds like you worked through it though?” Lindy asked.

  “Not really, no. I made her dinner every Sunday and she always found something to complain about. The sauce was too acidic, the meatballs too dry, whatever. I was more sad for Dave when she died than myself. Such is life.” Caroline flicked her hands in the air like she was throwing the memory of her mother-in-law out with the trash.

  “So Lindy, I hear my lazy brother had you do all of his school work for him?” Yoli asked.

  “Oh no, but we did study together a lot as a team.” Lindy answered.

  “Lindy is the reason we even passed our exams if we are being honest. She’s the book smart one of the group, I’m street smart, Jax is the nerdy engineer, and Nate is… well… a good fighter I guess.” Dee chimed in.

  “Oh good, I was always hoping Nathan would find a girl smarter than him. He’s a good worker bee, but I always felt like the thing missing for him was a strong woman to fight for. Just don’t break his heart and we will be square, ok?” Caroline said, pointing a finger at Lindy.

  “Yes Ma’am.” Lindy nodded.

  “She’s in rare form today, sorry Lindy. She just needs to get used to you being around.” Yoli said apologetically on her Mother’s behalf.

  The ladies walked into the booth to find it with half of its normal audience except for Jarris’ guests, Kalazan, Dalma, Peggy, and Hal.

  Peggy got out of her seat and walked up to Caroline.

  “Hi, I’m Peggy, sorry we didn’t get a chance to formally meet earlier.” She said.

  “Oh, you’re Peggy!” Caroline said as she pulled her in for a big hug. “Oh, thank you for being so good to my babies. They were so blessed to find you and your husband. Wait, we are staying at your hotel tonight, right?”

  “Yes, my own litter of kids will have your stuff in your apartment when you get back later tonight.” Peggy said with a proud smile.

  Dalma walked over as Dave, Jarris, Jax, and Gax walked in from being in the locker room with Nate. “Ladies, I think the next fight is about to start.”

  Lindy moved forward attempting to usher Caroline to her seat but she just walked past her, having not noticed her.

  Yoli put an arm on her shoulder.

  “Keep fighting the good fight. She’s already coming around I promise. She’s just trying to be tough because that’s what she got from my Grandma, and it made her want to be better for my Dad because she loved him so much.” Yoli said with a smile.

  “Thank you, I really do like Nate, and I know we’ve only just started really becoming… whatever we are, I just want it to work out.” Lindy added.

  “Later tonight when we celebrate this turd winning this thing and she gets to see you two in your natural environment, it will click for her, I promise.” Yoli gave Lindy a side hug before walking forward to watch the fight.

  ***

  Nate appeared in the arena and took a moment to observe his surroundings. The arena was packed with cheering spectators; so many species had come to watch him, but they were probably just there to see his body get crushed by his next opponent. He looked to the booth to find his friends and family waving vigorously and cheering him on before turning his attention to his opponent.

  Durgan was a Gorrillan male with teal blue fur and light tan skin where there wasn’t fur. He was in the top size percentile of his species. When fully standing, he reached almost 8 feet tall, weighing around 700 pounds, in other words, an absolute monster of a being.

  Durgan stood up and stretched his arms to the side, twirling them as if to get ready for a run before hunching back down onto his knuckles like Nate would see gorillas do back home at the zoo. Nate examined him more closely, noticing he was wearing a black armored vest on his torso with sleeves that led down his arms to spiked gauntlets on his fists.

  Durgan and Nate started circling the arena in opposite directions, trying to size each other up. Durgan pulled a whip from his waist and in an instant it burst into flames. Durgan stood up bipedal and started walking towards Nate while flicking his whip as an intimidation tactic.

  It worked. Nate grew worried about how he was going to deflect the whip without getting burned. Nate had learned through hard experience that things like gases, flames, anything without mass would get through his shield. While the whip wouldn’t hurt him, the blazing flames would. On top of the flaming whip, Nate had just seen on film that Durgan also had a fire breath ability so if he got too close he would be in range of Durgan’s fire breath. His shield would protect him from any kind of grapple move by Durgan, but if he took a flamethrower to the face, it would be all over.

  Nate stopped walking and faced Durgan. He was stronger now, he was faster, he could warp further, he could knock these greenies out with a single blow, he could bring down the weight of the cosmos on this guy without batting an eye.

  Durgan began charging Nate with his knuckles to the ground, trailing his whip behind as he ran. Nate readied himself as Durgan leapt into the air, powered by his naturally strong anatomy, and came down with his whip on Nate’s position. Nate rolled out of the way as Durgan roared and a stream of fire came rushing from his open mouth. Nate felt the intense heat of the attack before he warped away.

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  Now behind the Gorillan, Nate removed his spear from his magnetic back holder and swung down to bash him from behind. Durgan anticipated the move and rolled out of the way before flicking his whip in Nate’s direction. A sizzle sound came from Nate’s leg before watching the whip be violently pushed away by his shield, not allowing the physical component of the attack to connect.

  Durgan roared again as flames billowed out from his mouth again, causing Nate to pivot and warp away. Nate was sweating, which was normal during a workout or a fight, but he was sweating more than usual due to the heat of Durgan’s abilities.

  “C’mon you cockroach! Fight me like a man!” Durgan roared, standing on his legs beating his chest.

  This got Nate motivated as Durgan intended. He was itching to use his new aura ability but knew that others were potentially watching like Veronica or Biff. He couldn’t reveal his cards yet, not till the end, so he gripped his spear, split it in two, and allowed the coil to unfurl itself, letting the spear end to drop to the ground.

  The crowd gasped and roared in approval as they were witnessing a battle of whips and wits.

  Nate warped to a position in the air above Durgan, causing him to scramble while Nate flicked his spear whip down to slap the Gorillan in the face with an empowered strike. Before Nate’s move connected though, Durgan grabbed his head and hunkered down in place so when the hit landed, he rolled along the ground like a huge bowling ball.

  Durgan regained his composure, shaking off the attack as Nate warped back down to the arena floor. Durgan had done his homework and thought of innovative ways to deal with Nate’s unpredictable ability to position himself anywhere on the battlefield at any given time.

  Durgan charged Nate and began unleashing a stream of fire, causing Nate to warp to the left of the terrifying Gorillan. Instead of stopping and looking around for him though, Durgan just reacted and rolled to the left while still breathing fire in one long continuous breath.

  Durgan rolled into Nate before he had a chance to activate his shield again allowing Durgan to get into a grapple with him. Nate struggled as Durgan gripped tightly onto Nate’s leg and activated his ability that caused his whip to turn into flames.

  At first, Nate felt nothing as his nerves went into shock, but then the pain came and he wailed with an agonizing scream. Nate could only react with normal animalistic instincts by dropping his spear and trying to get the very hot thing off of his body. Durgan had his leg in a vice grip though and Nate looked up as the Gorillan opened his mouth ready to pour flames down his throat.

  Nate looked to the right and warped to the wall out of range of the breath attack but stumbled to the ground as soon as he re-materialized. His leg was an overcooked steak that needed to be cut off. He sat on the ground breathing heavily, wincing from the pain, but Durgan didn’t let up and charged as fast as he could to Nate trying to get the final blow in.

  Nate groaned and fought his consciousness to focus on something other than the pain; he focused on Durgan and let out a scream as he let his aura ability release with full intensity.

  The gorilla slammed to the ground hard, letting go of his whip, not able to get back up. He was able to lift up an arm only a couple inches off the ground before it slammed back down again.

  Nate warped to his spear and retracted the two halves, which left Durgan out of range of his aura now allowing him to get up. Nate then warped above him and let his body weight plunge the business end of his spear into the Gorillan’s chest. He warped away as Durgan tried to swipe at him and catch him with a flame breath.

  Durgan pulled Nate’s weapon from his chest as he looked around dazed and sluggish for him. Nate appeared again behind him in the air and bashed down with his two fists clenched together, channeling the full power of his shield into the blow.

  Durgan slammed into the ground, struggling to get up again. Nate slammed down again onto his armored vest, sending him into the ground once more. Durgan was gasping for breath, unable to resolve the gaping hole in his chest pouring blood onto the field.

  Durgan tried to turn towards his oppressor and open his mouth to breathe fire, but Nate stopped it with a final bash to his temple, crushing his skull into the ground. Durgan’s body faded as the crowd roared in approval, chanting Nathan’s name.

  Nate rolled onto his back, allowing the pain to consume him before he too faded and awoke in the connection chamber. Nate swung his legs off the side of the bed, his muscles still spasming from the intense pain he had just felt.

  “Nathan Foster, you have a one-hour break until your next fight.” The referee announced.

  Nate looked over his shoulder to glance at the referee with the periphery of his vision before getting up and shuffling into the locker room. After about thirty seconds of sitting there contemplating the violence that had just taken place, Lindy burst through the door with a look of desperate concern.

  “Lindy, you know I’m fine, I…” Nate tried to say as he got up to greet her but was abruptly tackled by her. Lindy pushed away from him, punching him in the chest before wrapping him up again in a bear hug.

  “I just don’t like seeing, let alone hearing, you get hurt like that.” She said with a muffled voice as her mouth was buried in his chest.

  The rest of the crew flowed in to see Lindy grasping onto Nate.

  “I think she’s more injured than I was.” Nate said.

  Nate’s Mom punched his arm but then embraced Nate and Lindy in a group hug.

  Lindy tried to pull away to let Caroline have her son to herself, but she pushed her back into her son without saying a word.

  “Wow, champ, that was like the most violent thing I’ve ever seen in my life. How’s your leg?” His Dad said.

  “It’s good, Dad. No issues, hurt probably as bad as it looked though. Remember that scene in The Punisher with the popsicle?”

  “Yeah?!” Dave said excitedly.

  “It was exactly like that, but with lots of actual pain after.”

  “That’s so crazy!” Dave replied, in awe of his son.

  “Crazy indeed, and you were so lucky that he managed to trip right before he was able to get to you again, huh kid?” Jarris said with a proud but disappointed look that only he could pull off. “Everyone, do you mind if I have a couple moments with Nate before we go to the dining hall?”

  “Oooooo!” Both Jax and Dee sounded loudly before they met eyes with Jarris and stopped, looking down scared and intimidated as they exited the room.

  Lindy held onto Nate’s hand as she left, holding his shorter Mother around her shoulders and his Mother holding Lindy by the midsection.

  “You hesitated.” Jarris started.

  “Yea.” Nate replied.

  “You played, you toyed with each other.”

  Nate nodded.

  “What did I always teach you when we were training for school? Never…”

  “Never hesitate, don’t hold back.” Jarris began saying, but Nate forcefully and more loudly interrupted him.

  “You think this is a game?!” Jarris yelled.

  “It kind of is, isn’t it?!” Nate yelled back. “No one is getting actually hurt, the crowd likes the show, plus I need to analyze him. He was a lot bigger in person, trust me.”

  “The crowd, Nathan? You’re not some pro fighter, you’re a greenie! If I were a serious contractor still with a serious team, there is no way I would let a showboater like you on my team. Showboaters get people killed! Do you even know why they have you do these fights in school? To simulate feeling pain, loss, working as a team. To harden you from when people start dying right beside you. When your teammates, your friends start dying right next to you.” He continued to shout before lowering his voice towards the end.

  “You’re right, no one actually got hurt. You’re right, the crowd did love it. But what happens when you can’t just wake up in a connection chamber? What will you do when there is no crowd? Some enhanced rabid beast won’t circle the arena with you, analyzing you because you seem bigger in real life. They will attack! They will try to eat you!” He said, showing his Cattan fangs.

  “What about when you’re escorting some high-value VIP from point A to point B? They aren’t going to invite you to… what did he say? ‘Fight them like a man!’” He said, gesturing his arms wide, beating his chest, imitating Durgan.

  “No, they will wait for the opportune moment and kill your VIP, and then kill you in the commotion.”

  “I’m sorry.” Nate said, disappointment carrying in his voice.

  “Don’t be sorry.” Jarris replied.

  “Be better.” Nate finished for him.

  Jarris nodded his head.

  “On your feet, boy.”

  Nate got up with a sad but toughened frown and looked to Jarris as a grin started to seep through his iron face.

  “That was a pretty good use of your aura ability though. It would take a keen eye to spot what actually happened.”

  Nate smiled, the shame and disappointment starting to slide off his shoulders.

  “Let’s go eat. You’re in the semifinals now, champion.”