Kyle had trained under three teachers throughout his life.
The first guided him as a child, laying the foundation of everything he knew.
The second was his elder brother, who refined those lessons as Kyle entered his teenage years.
The third was Hashu, the man who taught him the harshest truth of all.
Combat was not always about flawless technique or unwavering discipline.
Sometimes, victory belonged to the one willing to exploit every advantage and keep pressing until the other side broke.
Facing an opponent who had survived more battles than the number of years Kyle had lived, that lesson mattered more than ever.
"Come on, kid. You don’t believe I’d make the first move, do you?" Bennet asked, standing casually with his arms crossed.
Kyle lowered his gaze to Bennet’s stance.
Both feet were planted with deliberate precision, balanced perfectly to unleash a strike the instant Kyle committed. His footing was rock solid. Judging by the posture alone, he had likely trained in taekwondo or kickboxing.
Either way, Kyle had already activated God’s Eye, tracking every subtle shift in Bennet’s body, waiting for the slightest hint of movement.
Kyle had his pride, but pride alone had never won a fight. Charging in without making full use of the tools at his disposal would have been nothing short of stupidity.
Myuri: [Kyle looks serious... but against a bug like this?]
WarHorse: [I live for days like these! Crush him, brother!]
Tharos: [I hate that grin. Kyle... take his head for me.]
Ignoring the flood of messages, Kyle finally moved.
A subtle shift of his front foot.
His arm shot forward like a spear, aiming straight for Bennet’s chest.
Dhak
Kyle’s eyes widened.
A kick slammed into his guard, knocking him off balance. He had expected the attack, yet its speed had far exceeded his prediction.
"Hmm?" Bennet raised a brow. "You actually blocked my spear kick, huh?"
The man’s kicks were infamous for their explosive speed. Most opponents never even realized they had been struck.
Yet Kyle had done more than defend. As he intercepted the kick, his elbow drove sharply into Bennet’s ankle before the leg could fully retract.
Kyle frowned.
’System. Did I fail to perceive him?’
[Host, you are doing fine. Just keep going.]
He barely caught the message before Bennet lunged again.
His body burst forward, one leg thrusting through the air like a sharpened lance.
"Catch this!" he roared.
Kyle pivoted to his left just as the frontal thrust changed.
The kick curved mid-motion, the heel snapping toward his jaw with flawless balance and precise control.
There was no room to retreat.
Instead, Kyle relied on Hashu’s teachings.
Rather than meeting force with force, he redirected it.
"Hmm?"
Bennet’s eyes narrowed as his own momentum betrayed him. His balance faltered for the briefest instant.
Kyle was already charging.
"What the..."
Bennet twisted on his planted foot and turned to face him just in time.
"Did he just miss?" someone outside the pit asked.
Bennet let out a low growl.
He knew exactly what had happened.
The bastard had pulled his punch.
Kyle’s fist had stopped a hair’s breadth from Bennet’s face before drifting harmlessly past. It hadn’t been a miss. It had been restraint.
Kyle exhaled slowly.
He had made a mistake.
That punch had carried far too much force for what was supposed to be a friendly spar.
’Can’t do that again.’
Bennet’s grin sharpened. "You are going to regret that, boy!"
He shifted his stance, weight sinking low, hands opening from fists into loose, blade-like edges.
The kickboxer’s rhythm vanished. In its place came something looser, meaner, all elbows and short brutal angles.
Kyle barely had time to register the shift before Bennet closed the distance, his lead elbow snapping up in a tight arc aimed at his temple.
Kyle ducked under it, felt the wind of it pass a hair above his scalp.
No pause. Bennet’s knee came up next, driving for his ribs, and Kyle twisted his hips to let it graze past instead of land.
’Damn, he just switched his fighting style. No wonder he is commanding so many men.’ Kyle’s breath caught as he read it too late.
The kickboxing had been clean, spaced, almost generous with its openings. This was nothing like that. Bennet crowded him, chained strikes with no gaps between them, elbow into knee into a short vicious hook that Kyle barely got his forearm up to catch.
*Thud.*
Pain lanced up his arm.
"Still with me?" Bennet asked, voice barely strained, like this was a stroll.
Kyle answered by slipping to the outside of his next hook and driving a palm strike toward his ribs.
Bennet caught his wrist midair, redirected it, and suddenly Kyle’s own momentum was being used to spin him off balance.
’Judo? No, wrestling. He’s grappling now.’
Kyle ripped his arm free before the grip could set, throwing himself backward into a roll that scraped his shoulder against the dirt.
WarHorse: [THAT IS A FOUL PLAY BUT SO EXCITING!]
Tharos: [I want to see him wail.]
Myuri: [...I take back the bug comment. He is a £&##&£]
Bennet didn’t chase the roll. He simply reset his stance, patient, already reading how Kyle would come up.
"Three styles in under a minute," Kyle muttered, pushing to his feet. "You’re not a fighter. You’re a library."
"Ten years of fights’ll do that to a man," Bennet said. "Every style’s got holes. I just fill mine with someone else’s."
He came again, faster this time, boxing footwork carrying him in at an angle Kyle hadn’t accounted for.
A jab, testing. Kyle slipped it. A cross behind it, and Kyle weaved low, felt it clip the edge of his hair.
Then the rhythm broke again, Bennet’s rear leg sweeping low for his ankle, a wrestler’s trip disguised inside a boxer’s combination.
Kyle jumped it, barely, landing awkward and open.
Bennet’s fist was already coming for the opening.
Kyle got his arms up in an X-block, absorbed the impact through his bones, and skidded back three full feet.
[Host, his output is inconsistent by design. He is not testing your reflexes. He is testing your patience.]
’Can see.’
Bennet lowered his hands slightly, still grinning, not even breathing hard.
The audience has turned completely silent. What was expected to a swift overwhelming battle turned out to be much more inspiring and exciting
Veronica looked tense on the side but Jimmy’s grinning said he was having the time of his life.
"You’re fast, kid. Faster than you’ve got any right to be." He rolled his neck. "But speed’s not what wins fights like this one."
Kyle straightened, forearms throbbing, and said nothing.
Taking a deep breath he said, "I am sorry for holding back. We can end it now."
Bennet growled, "Now that’s more like it. Make sure you stand at those words!" As he said, he charged forward.
He closed the distance in a single burst, no more testing, no more sampling styles. This was everything at once.
A jab came first. Kyle’s palm caught it at the wrist, deflecting it wide with barely a flick of motion.
A cross followed immediately. Kyle’s forearm rose, angled just enough to slide the blow past his ear.
He didn’t step back, and the relaxed stance irked Bennet.
Every strike after that came faster, meaner, stacked on top of each other with no breathing room between them.
A hook. A knee. An elbow disguised inside the return of the hook. Bennet’s whole body moved like a storm that refused to settle, and still Kyle stood in the eye of it, shifting his weight by inches, redirecting force instead of resisting it.
*Tak. Tak. Tak.*
Each parry landed clean, like Bennet was whispering his thoughts to Kyle.
Bennet’s grin thinned into something sharper. "You’re not even backing up anymore."
"No need to," Kyle said.
Frustration finally cracked through the calm. Bennet’s next combination came faster, sloppier at the edges, a fighter pushing past his own rhythm to force an opening that wasn’t there.
Kyle saw it before it fully formed.
A wide hook, too committed and far from his center.
Kyle slipped inside it.
His fist drove into Bennet’s ribs with everything he’d been holding back since the pulled punch, a short brutal shot that folded the air out of the older man’s lungs.
*Guh!*
Bennet staggered half a step. For one heartbeat, silence swallowed the pit.
Then his arm shot out and caught Kyle by the collar before he could retreat.
"Not," Bennet wheezed, dragging him in close, "that easy."
His other arm locked around Kyle’s shoulder, wrenching him into a clinch, forehead to forehead, both of them fighting for an inch of space that neither could take.
Kyle drove a knee up, Bennet twisted his hip to block it. Bennet tried to throw him, Kyle sank his weight low and refused to move.
Neither budged.
WarHorse: [LOCKED UP LIKE TWO BULLS]
Tharos: [Finish him, Kyle.]
Myuri: [Fingers to the eyes! Knee to the balls! End himmmm!!]
They strained against each other, breath ragged, muscles trembling, until Bennet finally huffed out something close to a laugh.
"Alright," he rasped, loosening his grip. "Alright, kid. That’s enough."
Kyle let go at the same moment, both of them stepping back on unsteady legs.
The pit had gone dead quiet before erupting into noise.
Bennet wiped blood from his lip and looked at Kyle with something new in his eyes, not mockery anymore.
"It’s my loss." He said.
Kyle shook his head. "I believe we both held back so victory or defeat couldn’t be decided."
Bennet chuckled. "That modest attitude would get you dragged someday. But yeah, I got what you mean."
The man suddenly raised his hand for a shake, "Welcome to the base, Astortia Kyle. I am Bennet Cooper."
"..." Kyle went speechless...that surname...it could be just a coincidence-
"Ah yes, I am Charlie’s Cooper’s elder brother."
"...."
Fucked.
°°°°°°°
A/N:- If you don’t remember, Charlie was the same dude Kyle killed.