Rowan panicked as Wisconsin grinned down at him, savage and panting like an animal in rut.
"Just so you know, Red..." she purred, eyes glowing, "for what it's worth... I wouldn't go this hard if I didn't think you could handle it."
And then the punches came again.
Blow after blow, crashing down into his arms and shoulders like she was trying to drive his spine through the Earth. His guard tried to buckle. His elbows screamed. Every impact sent shockwaves through his chest and shoulders.
But now she was shouting between the shots.
"Don't just eat it!" WHAM! WHAM! Two brutal straights that slammed into his arms like cannon fire.
"Do something!" CRACK! That one got around the guard and rattled his skull as it made impact.
"Make me move!" BAM! BAM! Another two straights, crushing into his forearms.
Rowan couldn't breathe. Couldn't think.
He was paralyzed, trapped somewhere between awe and terror. She was terrifying. Glorious. A tiny avalanche of muscle, sweat, and purpose. Her seals blazed like muzzle fire and her voice was pure force. But underneath all of it, beneath the blows, the barking and the violence he realized something.
She wasn't trying to hurt him. She was trying to wake him up.
Lightning's voice shrieked inside his head, frantic.
"CAPTAIN SHE IS TRAINING YOU THROUGH FIST-BASED AFFIRMATIONS, PLEASE RESPOND."
Another hit crashed into his side, forcing a grunt from his lungs.
"Come on! Don't make me turn off your nervous system! If you don't do something I will shut you down! I can't stand watching you just eat this! Fight her, Rowan! Move dammit!"
But all he could do was stare up at Wisconsin who was fighting like...like she believed in him. In the most unhinged, punch-heavy way possible.
And something inside him...(maybe it was the last bit of air in his lungs, or maybe the last flicker of stupid male pride)...started to burn.
"Come on!" Wisconsin whined mid-swing, voice fierce and frustrated.
"Show me the man crazy enough to tame the Bismarck!"
Rowan screamed internally. "Lightning, shield! Thirty-eight degrees, starboard slant! Time for release just before impact then immediate dissipation!"
He then yelled at Wisconsin, "OK! I hear you!"
Lightning barely had time to register the command before Rowan purposely dropped his guard.
"Shield up. Bracing... NOW!"
The next punch flew toward his jaw like a missile, Wisconsin's target as plain as the nose on her face.
But at the last possible second, a curved sliver of cobalt hardlight flashed into being just off his right shoulder, angled perfectly and extending to cover his jaw.
Wisconsin's glowing fist slid off the barrier.
The red-orange light scattered. Her punch twisted wide and with it, her balance followed.
The moment the shield collapsed, Rowan moved.
He surged upward, adrenaline roaring in his ears, and threw his arms around Wisconsin's upper torso, locking them just below her shoulders in a sloppy, desperate bear hug.
He bucked his hips upward, catching her already-shifting weight.
"WHOA!" Wisconsin yelped as momentum tipped her forward, straight onto him.
Her chest hit his face. Hard.
"Oh God," Rowan thought, immediately dying.
"She is way softer than she looks..."
She didn't even pause to acknowledge it. Instead she tried to shift left or right, trying to throw his arms wide.
The motion and placement of his face nearly made Rowan's brain shut off.
So he tried to roll, body twisting to get on top, but she braced, planting a knee wide, the other leg kicking out and digging into the sand. Her center of gravity stuck.
They froze in a tangled, sweat-slick heap. Him gripping her like his life depended on it. Her breathing ragged. Both of them straining for leverage.
And her voice, still panting, came hot against his ear.
"Now that's more like it, Red."
Wisconsin grunted above him and threw a series of short, sharp hooks into the side of his head clipping his ear, and the hinge of his jaw.
They didn't have much heat behind them in this position, just pure shoulder and bicep. But God, they still hurt like hell! Wisconsin's explosive power was unbelievable for someone so small!
But as much as the hooks hurt, it was better than when she'd been postured up. Less momentum. Less room to load her abs and hips into the shots.
Rowan grit his teeth. Even though they hurt less, if he stayed like this, she was going to end him through attrition. Death by a thousand rabbit punches.
"Lightning!" he roared inside his head. "I need leverage! Pillar of light, right under her bracing leg—on my mark!"
Lightning responded instantly. She was nearly bursting with pride. Her boy was fighting for his life and dammit he was putting on a show!
"Calibrating! Ready!"
One blow landed. Then another. A third.
"Mark!"
A column of searing cobalt light exploded out of the ground beneath Wisconsin's planted knee, just enough to lift her weight, just enough to break her balance.
She grunted, caught off-guard and Rowan shoved with everything he had.
And for the first time in the match he rolled her.
They hit the sand hard, Wisconsin flat on her back, and Rowan surged forward, fist cocked, no time to hesitate.
He fired off a short uppercut from his knees. Wisconsin's head snapped back with a sharp grunt.
Rowan winced the moment it connected.
He actually liked Wisconsin. Crazy, weird, and terrifying as she was. She respected him enough to go full throttle.
Cracking her across the jaw didn't feel good.
But this was the fight she wanted. And now he was in it.
Wisconsin grinned up at him, completely unfazed by the punch.
Her jaw was already reddening, but her eyes sparkled like she'd just been given a gift.
There was a look in them now. Wild. Hungry.
"Oh yeah," she breathed, voice thick with satisfaction. "You're here with me now."
Then she moved—quick as a whip—trying to snake her legs around his waist, aiming to lock her feet at the small of his back.
But Rowan wasn't having it.
He outweighed her by forty pounds, and while he didn't have her training, he had just enough instinct to recognize the trap. And more importantly—he was faster.
He shoved her left leg down, pinned it under his knee, and dropped his weight on it—sliding into something that vaguely resembled a half guard.
His hips sank. His chest pressed down against hers. He leaned forward, letting gravity and desperation do the work. He dropped the side of his face against hers—not gently, but tactically—using it to control the angle of her head and shield himself from her right hand.
Her breath hitched.
Then she giggled, right in his ear.
And the sound that followed wasn't a laugh.
It was positively indecent!
Rowan went rigid. Every thought in his brain folded inward like a dying star.
Lightning screamed at him,
"SHE'S MAKING MOUTH NOISES! IGNORE IT! IGNORE IT OR SHE'S GOING TO DEVOUR YOU LIKE A TIGER THAT DOES CROSSFIT AND HAS MOUTH-WATERING THIGHS!!!"
Rowan was thrown off for sure, but such a cheap trick wouldn't work while he had his guardian angel in his head. So he clenched his jaw, gritted through the heat blooming in his face, and dug his heel into the sand for leverage.
Because this?
This was a fight.
Even if it felt suspiciously like foreplay.
Unfortunately, having his ear that close to her mouth turned out to be a mistake.
Wisconsin just couldn't help herself. She bit him.
Not hard. Nothing Tyson-level, but just enough to startle a repressed 19 year old grunting and rolling around on the beach with a fitness goddess.
Rowan jerked upward with a yelp, reflexive and unthinking.
And that was all she needed.
He lost control of her head and neck for a split second—and she surged.
Her body snapped up, an elbow crashing into his chin with whipcrack speed. Rowan's teeth clacked together. Dazed, he felt her hands move to grab his arm, to roll him again.
But he scrambled, legs kicking out, momentum carrying him free.
He tumbled backward, half-crawling, half-stumbling, until he found his feet again.
Wisconsin sat up in the sand, pouting like she'd dropped her ice cream.
"Dang it, Red! You weren't supposed to run away!"
Rowan wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, his face throbbing, ears ringing, adrenaline lighting him up like a bonfire.
"I'm not runnin'!" He said accidentally mimicking her Texas drawl. And despite himself, despite the pain he was in. He was smiling. "My momma didn't raise no bitch." He lifted his chin as a command.
"On your feet, Temper."
She stood. And for the first time, her grin softened into something genuinely joyful.
Rowan saw it clearly now.
The struggle. The contact. The push and pull. The pain and heat and pressure. It didn't just excite her.
This was how she communicated. With her fists. With the press of her body. Every jab and counter was her way of saying "I see you and respect you."
And Rowan understood that now.
So he answered.
He stepped forward and called lightning to his hand.
The air sparked, hissed, and coalesced, blue light curving into a wicked bayonet. Long, straight and brutal. A trench knife from some war that never existed. Pure intent in forged light.
It wouldn't cut, he wanted to fight Wisconsin not kill her, but it would hurt.
He needed the force multiplier to make up for their difference in skill. To keep her at a distance to take the power out of those hooks and uppercuts.
Wisconsin's eyes went wide when she saw it and her whole demeanor lit up like a kid on Christmas morning.
"Oh hell yes," she breathed.
"You brought a knife to a fistfight. I love you."
Rowan raised the blade, smirking through the agony.
"Come get me, then."
And oh the effect that smirk had on Wisconsin... She shivered, fighting the instinct to curl her toes and bite her lip. Instead she charged him again.
---
Piorun watched them fight, making quiet mental notes.
Wisconsin was the better fighter by far, that much was obvious. But what surprised her was how weirdly good she was as a teacher.
She'd dragged the boy kicking and screaming out of that initial adrenal dump, the one that had frozen him the moment she charged. She'd hit him hard, but not recklessly. If she'd really been trying to hurt him, the match would've ended five times already.
No...Wisconsin was going exactly as hard as she thought she could without breaking him. Testing him. Forcing him to adapt.
Now the two of them circled like predators, blue and red hardlight flashing between them. They clashed, separated, clashed again. Sparks flying with each connection of blade and fist.
And Piorun could see it clearly:
Temper was pacing him.
As Rowan's movements grew sharper, less erratic and he was so fast! Wisconsin began to close the deliberate gaps she'd been leaving in her guard. The obvious tells in her shoulders, the extra step before a jab, all vanishing now.
She was telegraphing less and testing more.
Making him earn every inch of ground.
And, astonishingly, he was rising to meet her.
Rowan was pushing toward his limits, and Wisconsin had started to actually guard herself. She wasn't just walking him through the fight anymore. She was in it. Because if he got that knife in the right place this fight was over no matter Wisconsin's skills.
Piorun smiled.
She might've just found two new favorite students in this matched set of redheads.
---
When Rowan suddenly backstepped into the air, Wisconsin nearly had an orgasm right there in the sand.
She'd considered taking the fight aerial. She had thought about it but Rowan? He'd just done it.
He created hardlight steps behind him, while back stepping and launched himself upward with perfect timing. He rose like a phantom, trailing cobalt light.
And then he leapt.
From his elevated perch, he threw a telegraphed kick. It was obvious, clumsy. A setup.
A feint.
Wisconsin braced for the real move, she guessed it would probably be an overhand diving attack from the bayonet. So she shielded her forearms and held them over her head to intercept...and promptly got kicked in the jaw!
The feint was a feint!
His shoe cracked across her face with a sharp, satisfying pop, and she went sprawling into the sand.
She hit the ground, rolled, and bounced back up, grinning like a lunatic, blood in her mouth. She spat.
"Damn," she muttered. "This little turd learns fast!"
He'd only seen her do that trick with her cross twice. And now here he was, flipping the script, modifying it, layering in hardlight just to sell the bit.
"Fuck!" she hissed, both furious and impressed. She stalked in again, this time testing him.
She connected with a quick snap-jab (which he ate like a total stud) then pump-faked a rear hook with her right hand.
And Rowan bought it—hook, line, and sinker. He weaved under where he thought the punch was going and lashed out with his knife.
That was his last mistake.
She pivoted hard, his bayonet slashed across her thigh, deep and sizzling with blue light. It hurt. Bad. He'd timed it right, moved like a fighter who knew she was bluffing.
But she was already swinging.
Her overhand left came down like judgment from God.
It connected flush against his temple with a sickening thud.
"Shit!" she thought as he crumpled in a heap.
"I didn't mean to go that hard..."
But he'd forced her to.
And on instinct, pure, brutal muscle memory... She'd put him to sleep.
And that's when she felt the pain in her guts. She looked down and there was a bright blue bayonet, lodged in her stomach. She laughed as it dissipated. Dammit!! She hadn't even seen him form the second one! It had been so fast! He must have done it the instant he realized he'd screwed up! Dammit! If this had been a real fight, Rowan would be out but Wisconsin?
Wisconsin would be dead.
Oooooh man... As she slumped to the ground and cradled Rowan's head, making sure she hadn't cracked his skull... Wisconsin had never been more head over heels for anyone in her life!
The bell chimed, signaling the end of the round. Little bastard nearly made it! Wisconsin pet Rowan's hair, looking down at him and spoke out loud. "Hey, Sparky, I don't know if you can hear me, but just so you know your Captain did great!" Wisconsin brushed the sand off his face with tender fingers. "I was proud to be his first fight."
Lightning wanted to weep for joy and at the same time she wanted to tear this bitches hair out by the root! But yea... She was proud too.