Fighting Chance Vol 2 #12 (Patreon)

Day three.

Felt more like day thirty, no lie. Like God hit fast-forward on the pain train and kept that bitch chugging. 

Hours had blurred into hours and even those just blurred into more hours; the same concrete and rust smell and that tap-tap-tap echoing in his skull even when Stick wasn't there. One and two didn't mean a thing anymore; forty-eight hours of training that felt more like the old man was trying to see how many ways he could break him without full-on killing him.

Zain knew he was a mess and a half to look at right now. No mirror in the warehouse’s bathroom and nothing clean enough to reflect but he lived in his own body long enough to know when he was beat to shit. Lip split straight down the middle, body bruised up, right eye swollen almost shut, with the purple spreading out past the socket most likely. 

Like meat that got beat till it was soft enough to chew. Every bruise had a brother, cousins, a whole damn family reunion on his ribs and shoulders and arms.

He'd tried the healing light that first night.

He’d half-staggered into the alley behind the warehouse after Stick went on one of his little breaks. Zain’s hand was already glowing that golden-white as he raised it up in the air, ready to wipe all this mess away, make it like it never happene-"Cheating."

CRACK.

That same fucking stick slammed down on his wrist and drove it straight into brick as the light sputtered out. Whatever curse there was on Zain’s lips vanished with the light as he just groaned past pain hot enough to taste in the back of his mouth. H-how the fuck does he do that?!

He didn’t even need to look to know the old man was just there, standing right in front of him with that stupid old man flash step he only used to be an asshole.

"Pain teaches." Zain kept his mouth shut, musty old man breath right in his face as Stick leaned in with that gravel voice. His teeth grit again as the stick pushed his hand, grinding it into the brick of the alley wall. "You think I don’t know your shitty little magic tricks, kid? Healing makes you forget. Makes you think you’re immortal. You heal that, you lose the lesson." 

“...” He wanted to bite his tongue. He really did; anything to get the old guy off his ass. But, he just wasn’t built like that. “I’m supposed to fight beat to shit? Your blind ass can’t smell the blood on me?”

Stick “looked” at him again, Zain staring right back into those blind-man glasses. He wished the old man moved more, showed something, anything. Half the time, he had no idea if the guy had simply passed out standing up and his face gave Zain nothing to go off even when he was talking.

After what felt like an hour, Stick just snorted and shook his head. "You earn your scars, kid. Every shitty one. Or you die from 'em."

That was yesterday.

Or maybe the first day.

Again, Zain really wasn’t sure, and it really didn’t matter.

What mattered was the now.

And in the now, he was posted up on some fire escape, a half-block from the warehouse, phone pressed to his ear as he listened to it ring. Fuuuuuuuuck me. He had accepted this, sure; he technically did sign up for the anti-evil-ninja boot camp but he hadn’t exactly known what he was signing up for. 

“...goddamn.” He ached in places he didn't know could ache, brand-new nerve endings singing for the first time in his life. Knuckles wrapped in gauze were all stiff with old blood, bruises stacked on bruises stacked on more bruises.

C’mon, sensei, pick u- "Zain?"

Sensei Collie’s voice hit him an entirely different way than Stick did, Zain’s stomach twisting all around the moment he heard it. "H-Hey, Sensei, what's good?" Eyes closed as he held back a sigh, voice coming out like broken glass. I sound like Stick, man. What the f…

"What's good?” He could hear the frown in her voice, the eighteen-year-old doing a good job at sounding like a mom all of a sudden. “Zain, you've been missing three days." Honestly, all she was missing was the ‘young man’ and she’d have it pretty-much-perfect. "You left a note saying not to worry and then you just vanished. Where are you?"

"I'm-" He cleared his throat low and slow, trying to push the gravel out of it. "I'm j-just helping El with some family stuff; his grandma… broke her hip, yeah."

Weak. Weaker than weak, and from the way Sensei went silent, she could tell that too.

"...are you hurt?" 

Yeah, she knows I’m BSing. No follow-up on the straight-up lie he tried to feed her meant she just wanted to get the facts, then.

"Nah, nah, I'm good, I'm fine, Sensei, just busy, like busy, busy, y’know," Getting my ass beat by a blind crazy old man who says you fight like it's a game. "Nothing crazy."

"Zee, you know that you can talk to me, tell me anything, if something’s wr-

"Nothing's wrong, Sensei,” he bit back a sigh, already feeling bad for making her worry more with this stupid call. He just wanted to hear her voice. “L-look, I'll be back soon, aight?"

"Zai-"

His thumb hit the red button, blood streaking on his screen.

A sigh left him, hard like a gut-punch. …I never hung up on her before. He still wasn’t sure what Sensei was to him, other than like a teacher and like a landlord and maybe even a boss or whatever. I mean… Considering she would tease him and give him chores and make him breakfast and wash his clothes and…

… holy shit, is Collie  my big sister? He stared down at the phone, his own reflection staring back all busted and purple in the black mirror. His hands shook a little, whether from the pain or something else, bandages brown-red and thick where the blood dried through.

"You done being a little sad shit?"

The phone almost jumped out of his fingers, Zain’s whole body jerking around to see Stick right there on the fire escape. H-how? No, literally.

How?

Four floors up and somehow the old maniac didn't make a single damn sound. The teenager felt himself tense up, breath coming out sharper as he jammed the phone back in his pocket before it could fall. "Ready for what?" 

"To learn why the Hand fears the Chaste." Stick tapped his walking stick on the railing once, twice. "Or to quit." His head tilted, the man still looking right at him even though he was supposed to be blind "Your choice."

Zain pushed off the railing, a glare locked on that scarred-up face, all those lines carved in like a roadmap of every bad decision the old man ever made.

Tap... tap... tap...

With a huff, he climbed down the escape and followed Stick and the sound back toward the warehouse...let's get this over with.

– o – o – o – o – o – o – o –

Five days in and yeah, he was faster.

He snapped out with a jab. Fast, clean, and perfect form too; Colleen would've smiled at that one even as it hit nothing and no one.

Had to be faster, right? What was the point of all this, all the split knuckles, and bruised ribs and the tap-tap-tapping on repeat in his skull every night if he wasn’t getting something out of it? It had to mean something, had to add up to being worth it, even if all that was worth it was landing one clean hit on this blind old bastard.

Zain snapped out again, this time a kick; his shin cut air where Stick’s head was.

Again. How does he—

A rib exploded hot on his left, that stupid shitty stick jabbing right into the floating bone before his foot even finished the arc.

"Still telegraphing everything." The old man sounded bored, actually bored, as if he wasn’t enjoying this. "Shoulders drop before you even throw one. Weight shifts a good half second before you even kick. Eyes move before your head does." 

A snort, dry and mean, sounded out loud. "Might as well send 'em a letter."

Oh, we doing jokes now? Fuck off. Teeth grinded hard, almost enough to hurt, as he dropped low and put all his weight behind a sweep at the old man’s legs. Let's see you dodge thi—

Stick hopped it. 

Like stepping over a puddle.

And that stick came down again.

CRACK.

"THAT'S IT!" It tore out of his throat before he could think, as Zain yanked at that thing in his chest; the Ki flooding out through his arms till blue light flickered around both fists. The world slowed down just enough to notice, everything sharper, body humming with power that made his skin feel too tight. 

Twice as strong. Twice as fast. Now what, old man?

The cross came out with all the power aimed right at Stick's head, fist blurring out. For half a second, he knew it was gonna land, he could see it landing, could feel the impact alrea-

CRACK.

"AAGHH!"

His whole hand just screamed, Ki blue light sputtering out as pain exploded from knuckles to elbow. That walking stick met it head-on and didn't even move, solid as hitting a brick wall with everything he had.

Both hands came up, one grabbing the other, trying to hold it together while his brain spun in circles trying to figure out how. 

"Cheating." Stick's voice dropped lower as the old man shuffled closer. "All that chi shit is just cheating. You ain't good enough to use that shit yet. You’re playing with lights, kid."

Knees hit the floor, cold concrete biting through his jeans, and blood dripped from his knuckles with a slow th-thp, th-thp.

"I can't."

“Can’t what?”

The words just fell out as he looked up with his bad eye still stinging. "I can't... I can't even hit you. I'm fast, I'm strong, but it ain't shit. Maybe..." He coughed out a mouthful of something; spit, blood, he didn’t care. "Maybe I ain't cut out for this."

Stick stood there, still as a statue and just as quiet. "Maybe you ain't."

Zain just stared.

"Maybe you'd rather play hero till they cut your head off." The old man shrugged, one shoulder lifting and dropping like it didn't matter, like Zain didn't matter, like none of this mattered. "Maybe you're just another kid with a gimmick." 

The old man clicked his tongue and tapped his cane. "Your choice."

"RAAAGHH!"

Zain exploded up, chain already whipping free from under his shirt, metal singing through air aimed right at Stick's skull cause if he couldn't punch the old man then h-

Stick stepped to the side..

One motion, fluid and easy, already moving before Zain finished the thought, and that walking stick jabbed forward. 

THUD.

Stick's staff met his chest, tip pressing against his sternum.

Huh. He blinked down at it, chain going limp in his hand. Wait, why didn't that hurt, why di-

Stick's thumb flexed on the handle.

Air exploded out of him, lungs emptying all at once, chest caving in like someone swung a sledgehammer straight through his ribs. His spine hit the wall, hard, and everything just stopped working right; legs, arms, breathing, all of it offline as he slid down the bricks and hit the floor in a heap.

"Anger without control is suicide." The old man scoffed loud. "And right now, you just died."

H-how? His throat made old-man raw smoker sounds for the second dozen time in nowhere near as many days.

"You need cold fury, boy." Stick turned, walking toward one of the thick wooden support posts holding up nothing. "It’s called calculated violence, thinking with all that rage." He stopped, staff tapping the post once. "Not just screaming with it like a retard."

Zain raised one hand, four fingers curled back.

"Watch." The jab came fast, focused, vicious; stick lashing out at the four-by-four beam in a short, tight arc that looked like nothing, like Stick barely moved at all.

CRACK.

The post split, with a sound like a gunshot, the thing gored clean through as it exploded outward.

Stick turned back, scarred-up face blank and still as the thing fully gave way; split right down the middle. "That," the old man scoffed, "is what focused anger looks like."

Zain’s eyes narrowed. Ki.