Fighting Chance Vol 2 #14 (Patreon)

Kid learned too fast.

The thought sat cold in his gut, just another stone he couldn't shit out. Three weeks, barely that; less than three if he counted honest. He pushed, he prodded; hell, he damn near tortured, and the boy just... absorbed it. 

His body was stronger than it should be (too strong, even for grown men three times his size) but somehow, the kid’s mind shit all over that. What kinda willpower… Even Stick had to admit that he’d pushed the limits, edged the kid a bit too far just to see what he would take.

There had to be a limit, right?

But no, the kid just gritted his teeth, wrapped his wounds on his own and kept pushing even more, that crazy look in his eye only getting brighter as the days went by. The old man let out a breath, legs folded as he felt the heat of the candle sitting in front of him warming his old bones just enough. A hundred years, he sighed again, and it took me this long to find such a perfectly fucked-up little idjit.

Months of technique, years of philosophy, swallowed in days like rice gruel. 

If he was a stupider man, a more hopeful one, he might have called it learning. Thankfully, no one had ever called him stupid, hopeful or young since the only fuckin’ bead-rattler to sit the Oval Office. 

No, the kid was remembering.

He'd felt the shift loud and clear, day after day, like standing next to Big Ben every hour on the hour. It was that hard to miss. 

Even people who had eyes, lazy as they were, wouldn’t miss it. Not the way the kid went from a sloppy loud, unbalanced mess; thud-scuff announcing every damn step, to this focused gliding thing overnight, near enough. 

Combinations no longer broadcasting for everyone paying attention. No more of any of that all of a sudden. Like the body remembered throwing them for twenty years even though the hands were still smooth.

He wasn’t perfect. 

Not even close to being a master, of course, but it definitely wasn’t normal.

Not even close.

And that blue noise he wrapped around his fists, hot and raw against Stick's chi sense; it didn't taste like the world's energy, didn't move like proper chi. Too raw, like tight adrenaline running from an engine, like electrified blood pumping outside the body. 

Wrong frequency, wrong texture, wrong sound; like hearing metal scrape where silk should be.

Reincarnation. Has to be.

No other shape fit the problem. No fourteen-year-old, gifted or not, moved like that. No kid killed a training dummy with that kind of cold efficiency without doing it before. In another life, another body.

The echo lived in his movements, muscle memory existing before the muscle grew.

Day one, he remembered testing a loud clumsy little hoodlum who couldn't block a simple jab, heartbeat going thump-thump-thump all panicked, reeking of salt-sweat and fear he buried under anger and that goddamn mouth of his.

Day ten, the brat was already countering. Badly, but still, the boy was anticipating strikes before they landed.

Day twenty-one and the boy was moving like a soldier, Stick no longer able to call him that just to motivate the idjit. There was no sweet little lie in the word when the boy was already moving as if he’d stacked a body count, even that chain flowing smoother and faster everytime he used it.

And yesterday... yesterday the boy almost landed it. 

What could have been a killing blow nearly struck home. On him. 

Stick knew his ego wasn’t up there with the best of ‘em, but he was up there when it came to those bigheads who called themselves shit like ‘grandmaster’. You didn’t fight for ninety out of a hundred years without knowing where you stood after all.

And that kid, he was rising up the ranks quick.

That flicker of intent, the drop in air pressure, compression of blue noise focused tight had come too close the day before; a strike aimed at his throat that could have been clean as a beheading.

He'd parried it. Barely.

It wasn’t a risk, but the fact he actually had to parry it told him enough. Natural born demon.

He should feel proud, he knew that. Finally, after all these years, a weapon. Sharper than Murdock, but just

Instead he just felt cold in a different way. The tool was too sharp, too fast, especially considering the handle was still a child. A weapon this good this early starts developing its own ideas about who holds it.

Air pressure shifted on the stairs as something moved with a slow deliberate tread; each step a thud vibrating the floorboards under his ass. Stone.

The man entered, a wall of heat and scarred muscle filling the doorway. His breathing was as slow as usual, hard body not one for speed, that chi of his a steady weight pressing down. Stick breathed in as he listened to that pulse that stayed solid as bedrock; all of Stone smelling of old sweat, tough leather, and something else underneath.

Stick flared his nostrils, just a little, before he nodded to himself. Gunpowder.

And recent too.

Stone had gotten his hands messy.

"Old man." The voice came out scraped with every inch of the Bronx he’d grown up in. "Took me a few stops to find you"

Stick kept his back to his old student, not even a breath leaving him as he listened to the drip... drip... of a pipe a room over instead. "Stone. Thought you were handling Boston."

"Handled." Stone moved, floor groaning the slightest bit under his weight till he stopped ten feet out. "Three Hand cells. Gone."

"Clean?"

The boy let out a snort loud enough to taste. "Clean enough."

We’re treading lightly in Boston for a bit then. Stick grunted back as Stone's weight shifted, old denim straining with the movement clear to his ears. He remembered when Stone was still a kid, a kid who could smash a cinderblock over his head, but stil a kid. Now, that kid was getting old himself.

He knew well enough how time was a bastard; crept up quiet then did you the favor of kicking your teeth in.

"Heard you picked up a recruit."

"More than that." He turned to face his pupil, glasses off; blind eyes staring right at the tight wall of chi always wrapped around Stone's chest; a steady thump... thump… the sound of a heart that learned discipline young. "Asset. Potential."

"So, kid's got skills." Stone's bulk settled on the floor near-silent for something that size, old boards barely groaning. "Ain't exactly new."

A dry hiss of a laugh scraped out of Stick’s mouth. Skills, he says. 

The word didn't cover half of it, not a quarter. "Boy's a natural killer, Stone. Born for the war." He let it sit a beat, tapped his stick once on concrete. "Learns faster than anyone I trained." The old man shook his head for a second. "Including Murdock."

Stone's heartbeat kicked up, just a few beats, few seconds; then it settled back down slow and controlled like the man forced it there. Good. Still cares about that one. "How fast we talkin'?"

"Three weeks. Absorbed near everything already." Stick tapped again to make the point. "Moves like he been fighting for decades."

The heat coming off Stone sang louder, breath picking up just a fraction with it. "That fast... that ain't natural."

"You think I don't know that?" The scoff came easy, automatic. Century of teaching, century of knowing when something didn't fit right. Kid learned the way water remembered being ice; instant, complete, like the shape was already there underneath.

"So..." Stone breathed the word out slow, waiting.

"Reincarnation. Has to be." He clicked his tongue. "He even has the chain.”

“What chain?”Stick held back a sigh, unsurprised but still disappointed. His best pupil and still barely any time spent on anything but what he could hit. “The chain of the original Chaste, the boy from the scrolls. The one that got this whole bullshit started, Stone."

"The one carved through 'em at Kunlun?"

"Mainland China, kid, not even Kunlun proper." The correction came sharp. Details mattered in war; sloppy thinking got people dead. "Same one killed the Black Sky though. Same boy, same chain."

Stone went still, breathing slowed down, and the smell of his sweat changed just a fraction; sharper, more focused. Calculating. "...If he really is him..."

"Then we got the ultimate weapon." The words tasted familiar on his tongue. How many times had he thought that before? Walters with his speed, Martinez with his viciousness…

"Remember the others?" Stone's voice scraped out, almost like he knew what Stick was thinking. "Walters? Three months. Hand put his head on a spike in Bushwick."

"Martinez." His own voice came back flat. "Seventeen weeks. Good soldier, that one."

"Good? Brat was a psycho-"

"Still didn't deserve what he got." Neck broken by some psycho running around the city in a mask and costume, just wasn’t right. Waste. Psycho or not, the kid was at least a fighter worth the title. Still. "This one. is.."

"Different," Stone finished for one.

"This one…” Stick nodded his head slow. “He could clean the slate. End the war in this city, even." Maybe. Probably not. But maybe. A century of war taught him not to hope, but also taught him to use every edge that came along, and this kid was without a doubt an edge, sharp as they came.

The plan was obvious, didn't need saying, but Stone liked hearing the words spoken. Made it real for him, solid. Good leader, and a better fighter, but the man thought in concrete.

Always had.

"So we use him, same as all the others." Stone rumbled. "Point him at the Hand's heart. Let him tear through. Kid's expendable." Pause. "Long as he takes them with him."

The nod came small, barely a twitch. "Exactly. Mold him young, shape him proper. Break him down, build him back as ours." Perfect weapon. 

"Well, we can test ‘im out with a little trip soon. Hand's gathering in Queens," Stone clapped his hands together, the man grunting with the motion. "Heard from my people. Small op, tiny numbers. Next month."

"Send the boy in first." The plan wrote itself, same as always; same as it'd been for seventy-odd years of this shit. "He’s good enough to take down a chunk of any group without a Master in it, cause plenty of chaos too."

"He survives, bonus." Stone's voice went flat as concrete. "He doesn't..."

"Mission accomplished either way."

Stick’s jaw tightened as he felt the air change, the faint scuff of rubber on concrete hitting his ears. Ba-dum-b-dum-B-DUM. The kid's heart was faster than resting, slower than running, and too close for comfort either way..

Shit.

Must've heard Stone's footsteps coming in. Light as they were, apparently, it was enough to wake him. …impressive. The kid was better than he thought, sharp enough to not sleep too light. 

Bad thing, though, kid definitely heard too damn much.

Stone though, Stone was a good soldier; unfortunately Stone was also an idjit who didn't know when to shut his mouth.

"What about after?" His student's voice came in low, grating rumble. "If he survives? Kid that dangerous... he might turn."

Stick kept his back still as he looked over Stone’s shoulder, white eyes aimed at the empty dark behind the man. "Turning to what? Kid a demon, but he ain’t a monster. Weapon and soldier, through and through.”

"He ain't a weapon yet, old man." Stone's voice had that edge now, the one that meant he was thinking past orders. "Three weeks in, kid's just a hothead."

"He'll be fine." He aimed the words deliberate, through the door and down the stairwell so they'd carry. "Boy's loyal, fights for all that’s good and justice." Justice. Shit word for shit concept, but kids ate it up every time. "Perfect soldier.”

Heartbeat on the stairs picked up speed, went from steady thump... thump... to faster trapped-bird flutter. Thumpthumpthumpthump.

Good. Let the boy hear it, let him understand what the stakes were. War didn't leave room for soft feelings, for trust that wasn't earned in blood.

"What if he stops following orders?" Stone pushed, idjit that he was.

"We let him go."

Silence stretched, just the drip-drip of that pipe two floors down and Stone's breathing gone careful "...Murdock made you soft, old man."

"I'm a teacher." The grunt came automatic. “No matter how good the kid is, he ain’t irreplaceable." Stick sniffed the air. "Just useful."

He felt it before anything else; a spike of that blue noise chi flaring hot enough for him to feel it against his own. A sharp gasp of air sucked in fast.

Then...

No. Shit. No.

"He's-" Stick started to turn, already moving.

Kid was gone; not gone-gone, moving-gone. His heartbeat a hard thump... thump… Not from fear or panic, just…

Anger. Control. Killing intent.

Fuck.

"Someone's there," Stone growled, already moving for the stairs with that heavy tread.

The old man raised a hand, quick but hesitant all the same. "...let him go." 

Air moved near the window, a clink of metal pushed open as the sound of late-night city noise pushed its way in. It only took a second for the sound and body heat to vanish outside the warehouse.

...Fuck.

The boy wasn’t supposed to hear that, not all of it at least; was supposed to hear pressure, hear stakes, understand his place in the old war. Wasn't supposed to hear the disposal part, the "not irreplaceable" part.

Mistake. His mistake, a century of teaching, a century of playing kids like instruments, and he'd just-

Smashed the damn foundation.

"Old man?" Stone's voice rumbled low.

"Get out." The words hissed between his teeth.

"But the ki-"

"Get. Out."

Stone's chi bristled, heat flaring with offense, but the big man moved; heavy angry thuds down the stairs, floor groaning under his weight with no more attempt to hide his presence.

Alone now in the warehouse that smelled like gun oil and ozone-anger and his own failure hanging thick in dead air.

The tool wasn't just sharp. The tool was loose.

Had played the boy perfect, built him on a foundation of justice and vengeance and simple math; bad guys deserve death, we're the good guys, follow orders and save the world.

Then he'd gone and kicked the foundation out from under it.

Kid was gone by now, least a half mile gone as fast as he could go. He knew the brat too, three weeks of teaching and fighting had let him read the boy like a book. There was too much in him, pride and all. And now, with the heat in his chest, he’d be moving fast through the night pushed on with all the rage where a seed of loyalty used to be. Damn it.

He didn’t just need the boy's obedience. No, he needed his loyalty; needed him to believe in the cause, to think this war was more than just more meat going into the world’s oldest grinder

And all that just got torched like shitty rolling paper.

The old man stood in the dark with nothing but city sounds and his own breathing, the weight of another mistake added to a century's worth.

Kid might've run, but this wasn't done. Nothing ever was.

"Nobody's free, kid," he muttered into empty air. "Not in this war."