The first week inside the bunker felt like time had lost its meaning. There was no windows, no sunrise or sunset to mark the passing hours, only the steady hum of the ventilation systems and the sharp buzz of overhead lights flickering on and off at scheduled intervals. Days blend into one another until they were indistinguishable, like smeared ink across a page.
Every morning I woke with the same fragile hope lodged into my chest. Maybe today someone would finally call my name over the intercom and tell me where my family was. Maybe they were being quarantined. Maybe there had been some kind of mistake. But every day ended the same way, quiet, hollow, disappointment settling into my bones.
I had asked at first with politeness, "Have you seen my parents?" When a guard would escort them to meals. The guards always wore identical grey uniforms with no insignias, no name tags, nothing to distinguish one from another. Their expressions were carefully blank.
"They're safe," one had answered the first time, not meeting my eyes.
"Where?" I pressed.
"Focus on your adjustment," he replied, and that was the end of it.
The second time I asked, the guard pretended not to hear me at all. The third time, he simply said, "that information is not available to you." It wasn't just dismissive, it was rehearsed. Like they had been trained to say it.
The girl I had shared a room with, Maya, had stopped asking about her own family about day four. At least, she stopped asking out loud. Sometimes at night, when the lights dimmed to a low artificial twilight, she would whisper into the darkness.
"Do you think they're close?" Maya murmured one evening.
"They have to be," I said automatically. It was the only answer that didn't hurt too much. But even as I said it, doubt crept in.
The bunker was bigger than I had first realized. During orientation, they had only shown them the classroom, the dining hall, the sleeping quarters, and a recreation room with worn exercise equipment and a stack of old board games. But there were hallways that branched off from the main corridor, heavy doors requiring keycards. Armed guards stationed at corners that didn't seem to lead anywhere important.
On the fifth day, I caught a glimpse of something strange. They were being marched back from dinner when a door at the end of the hall opened unexpectedly. Two guards wheeled out a stretcher. The person on it was covered by a thin white sheet. Not tucked tightly, just loosely draped. A hand slipped out. It was pale. Still.
The guards noticed me staring. One of them stepped slightly in front of me, blocking the view. "Keep moving."
No explanation. No announcement. At dinner that night, no one mentioned it. That was the strangest part. The silence.
You'd think in a place full of frightened children, rumors would spread like wildfire. But conversations were cautious, hushed. It felt like everyone had collectively decided not to dig too deep, as if curiosity itself were dangerous.
There were cameras everywhere. Small black domes in the ceiling corners. In the classrooms, in the dining hall. Even in the hallways outside the sleeping quarters. I hadn't seen one inside our room, but that didn't mean it wasn't there.
On day six, I tested something. During free period, I approached one of the instructors, a woman with sharp cheekbones and a voice that never rise above calm neutrality.
"Ma'am," I said carefully, "I still haven't been reunited with my family. I just need to know if their in this facility."
The instructor paused mid-sentence, her pen hovering over the clipboard. For a fraction of a second, just a flicker, something unreadable crossed her face. Then it was gone.
"All residents are where they need to be, " she said. "Your focus should remain on your training."
Training. That word again. They hadn't told us much about it yet. Just physical conditioning so far. Morning drills. Endurance exercises. Strength training. Nothing that explained why they needed children isolated underground.
"Training for what?" I asked before I could stop myself.
The instructors gaze sharpened. "You will be informed when it is appropriate."
The conversation ended there. That night, lying in my bunk staring at the underside of the mattress above me, I finally admitted the thought I'd been trying to outrun. What if my family wasn't here at all?
The bunker had been presented as a sanctuary. Protection from whatever was happening outside. But protection usually meant bringing families together, not separating them without explanation, and if they were safe, truly safe, why wouldn't anyone just say where they were?
Maya shifted in the bunk above. "You're thinking too loud again," she whispered softly.
"Sorry."
"It's okay." A pause. "You don't trust them either, do you?"
The question hung heavy in the dim room.
"No," I said finally. The word felt like stepping off a ledge. "I don't."
"Yesterday. When I was in the laundry room. Two guards were talking. They didn't know I was there." She swallowed. "One of them said something about 'Phase Two starting sooner than expected.' And the other one said 'They're not ready.'"
"Ready for what?"
Maya voice trembled, "I don't know."
The air in the room felt thinner. Phase Two. Training. Restricted areas. Covered stretchers, and families who were supposedly "safe" but nowhere to be found.
For the first time since arriving, her hope shifted into something else, something sharper. Not desperation, not fear, suspicion. If no one else was going to tell her where her family was, she would find out herself. The bunker may have swallowed them whole, but it hadn't taken her mind, and she was done waiting.
Phase Two began without ceremony. There was no announcement over the intercom, no explanation, just a shift in the routine. The classroom desks were gone when they arrived that morning.
In their place was thick black mats covering the floor wall to wall. The fluorescent lights seemed harsher somehow, reflecting off the smooth surface. Along the wall stood three instructors I had never seen before.
They weren't dressed like the guards. These instructors wore fitted black training gear, their movements controlled and economical. Fighters. Not teachers.
"Line up," one of them ordered.
No one asked questions. The first lesson was basic stance. Feet shoulder width apart. Knees slightly bent. Hands up. Protect your face. Protect your center. The instructor walked between the rows, adjusting elbows, tapping ankles into position.
"When you fall," he said flatly, "you get back up immediately. Hesitation is weakness."
They didn't explain what they were being prepared for. They just began. At first, it felt almost surreal, like some intense gym class. They practiced strikes in the air, jabs, crosses, elbows, knees, then blocking drills. Then controlled grappling. Every mistake was corrected immediately. Every lag in effort punished with push-ups or sprints across the mat.
But as the days passed, it stopped feeling like practice. I watched a boy take a hit to the jaw and stagger backward, blood bright against his lip. No one rushed to comfort him. An instructor simply said, "Again."
Something inside me clicked into place the moment they began sparring. My body understood before my mind did. I moved faster than I thought I could. Anticipated before the strike even came. When my partner lunged, I pivoted naturally, drove my elbow into his ribs, swept his legs from under him in one fluid motion. The room went quiet.
The instructor crouched beside my fallen opponent, then looked up at me with a measuring gaze.
"Again," he said—but this time it wasn't directed at my partner. It was directed at me.
They rotated three different students against me that afternoon. Larger boys. Quicker girls. I adapted to each one instinctively. When someone tried to overpower me, I used leverage. When they were faster, I controlled distance. When they hesitated, I struck.
It wasn't just that I was winning. It was that I wasn't thinking. My body simply reacted. By the end of the week, the instructors had stopped pairing me with the others. Instead, one of them—a tall woman with a scar running from her temple to her jaw—gestured for me to stay behind after class.
"You're advancing," the woman said, circling her slowly. "Why?"
The question caught me off guard. "I… don't know."
"Everyone knows why they fight," the woman replied cooly. "Fear. Anger. Survival. Which one is yours?"
I hesitated.
"My family."
The woman studied her face carefully, as if searching for deception. Apparently satisfied, she nodded once.
"Report here tomorrow. One hour early."
The next morning, while the others were still finishing breakfast, I stood alone on the mat. The tall woman didn't waste time on basics. She taught me joint locks that made my wrist throb with pressure. Chokeholds designed to render someone unconscious in seconds. Counters to knife attacks. Disarms. Strikes aimed at vulnerable nerves.
"These are not sport techniques," the woman said, adjusting her grip with unyielding precision. "These are survival techniques."
Bruises bloomed across my arms. My shoulders ached constantly. But with every new move mastered, a strange sense of clarity grew inside me. They weren't training them to defend. They were training them to neutralize.
During regular sessions, I could feel the difference in how the instructors watched me now. Not casually. Not critically. Intently. They whispered to one another when I moved. Took notes on their tablets. Sometimes one of the guards would stand at the door longer than necessary, observing.
Maya noticed too.
"They're treating you differently," she whispered that night from the upper bunk.
"I know."
"Be careful," Maya said. "Extra attention here isn't a good thing."
I knew that. But I also knew something else. If they saw me as valuable, I might gain access to things the others couldn't. Information. Restricted areas. Answers.
The following week, the training escalated again. The tall instructor led me down one of the hallways that required keycard access. The heavy door hissed open, revealing a smaller training room lined with reinforced padding. There were cameras here too—but fewer.
"This level is classified," the woman said. "You do not discuss it."
My pulse quickened. "Yes, ma'am."
They introduced weapons—not to use, but to defend against. Rubber knives. Batons. Eventually, simulated firearms for disarm drills. My reflexes sharpened under pressure. When the instructor lunged unexpectedly from behind, I reacted before fear could catch up, twisting, trapping the wrist, driving a knee upward in one seamless motion.
The woman grunted as she hit the mat, then slowly smiled.
"Good," she said.
It wasn't praise.
It was confirmation.
By the end of Phase Two's first month, I no longer trained with the others at all. My schedule had been separated. Morning conditioning alone. Advanced combat midday. Strategy sessions in the afternoon where they studied diagrams of building layouts and learned how to clear rooms. Not defend hallways. Not protect civilians. Clear.
One afternoon, as I wiped sweat from my brow, I forced myself to ask the question that had been simmering beneath my focus.
"Why me?"
The tall instructor didn't look up from the tablet she was reviewing. "You scored highest in adaptability metrics."
"Metrics for what?"
A pause.
Then, "Phase Three."
My stomach tightened.
"And what's Phase Three?"
For the first time since I'd met her, the woman's expression shifted—just slightly.
"You'll see."
That night, lying awake in the artificial darkness, I stared at the ceiling and flexed my sore hands. They were stronger now. Steadier.
But strength came with a price.
The other children avoided my gaze lately. Not out of resentment—out of uncertainty. I wasn't one of them anymore. Not fully. The instructors had carved me into something sharper. More precise.
Whatever Phase Three was… I had the feeling I was being prepared not just to survive it— but to lead it.
Phase Two did not slow down after that. If anything, it intensified in ways that made the first weeks feel like warm-ups. The instructors stopped correcting me gently. Now when I made a mistake, they exploited it immediately—driving me to the mat, twisting my arm to the edge of pain, forcing me to feel exactly what failure cost. There were no encouraging speeches. No reassurance. Only repetition.
The other children noticed the difference more with each passing day. When I walked into the main training room now, conversations dimmed. Not because they disliked me, but because I had become a reminder. A measuring stick. An example of what the instructors wanted from all of them, none of them were reaching it.
One afternoon, during standard sparring drills, they paired me briefly with a boy named Ethan. He had been one of the strongest at the beginning—broad-shouldered, competitive, determined to impress. When the round began, he came at me hard, aggression outweighing strategy. I sidestepped, redirected his momentum, and swept his legs in a movement so quick it felt like muscle memory from another life. He hit the mat with a thud that echoed. He didn't get up right away.
I stepped back, hands raised, waiting. When he finally rose, there was something in his eyes that hadn't been there before. Not anger. Not even embarrassment. Distance. After class, he avoided me.
That night, Maya sat up on the upper bunk, hugging her knees. "You didn't even look like you were trying," she said quietly.
"I was," I replied, though I wasn't entirely sure that was true.
"No," Maya insisted. "You weren't."
There was no accusation in her voice—just awe mixed with unease.
The early morning private sessions grew more brutal. The scarred instructor—whose name I eventually learned was Commander Vale—introduced controlled exhaustion drills. She would make me sprint laps around the padded room until my lungs burned, then immediately force me into combat scenarios. Disarm while fatigued. Defend while dizzy. Strike while disoriented.
"Your body will betray you under stress," Vale said once, circling me like a predator evaluating prey. "Your training must not."
Sweat dripped into my eyes. My arms trembled from overuse.
"Again," Vale commanded.
She attacked.
The strange part was not the pain. It was how quickly I adapted to it. Bruises faded faster than expected. Soreness lasted hours instead of days. My stamina climbed in sharp increments. The metrics on Vale's tablet began to climb with it.
One afternoon, after successfully countering a knife simulation three times in a row, Vale stepped back and regarded me with a long, assessing stare.
"You're anticipating before visual confirmation," Vale said.
"I don't understand."
"You're moving before I complete the strike."
I hadn't noticed that.
Vale's eyes narrowed slightly—not with suspicion, but curiosity. "Instinct like that is rare."
The word lingered.
Rare.
That evening, as they filed into the dining hall, I felt the weight of observation heavier than ever. Two guards stood near the far wall instead of their usual post at the entrance. One of them was watching me—not casually, but deliberately.
When our eyes met, he didn't look away.
Maya followed my gaze and stiffened. "They're tracking you."
"I know."
"Why?"
I didn't answer, because I didn't have one.
Later that week, Vale led me past the usual restricted hallway and into a deeper sector of the bunker. The air felt cooler there. Quieter. The walls were reinforced steel rather than concrete. Fewer cameras—but larger ones. A door marked only with a number slid open. Inside was a simulation room.
Unlike the padded mats upstairs, this space had been constructed like a real environment. Mock walls formed narrow corridors. Doors that could be breached. Corners designed for ambush.
"Scenario training," Vale said simply.
The first run was basic—clear the hallway, neutralize the threat dummies placed strategically behind corners. The dummies weren't stationary. They moved on tracks. Some lunged unexpectedly.
My heart pounded as I advanced, every sense sharpened. I hugged the wall, checked blind spots, moved with deliberate precision. When a dummy swung from the left, I pivoted, trapped the limb, delivered a strike to the throat area, and continued forward without hesitation.
Time felt distorted inside the simulation. Slow and fast all at once.
When it ended, Vale checked the timer.
"You're improving," she said.
That was the closest thing to praise she ever offered.
The next scenario was darker. Literally. They dimmed the lights until the corridors were cast in shadow. Emergency red strobes flickered intermittently.
"Adapt," Vale instructed.
My breathing steadied as I entered.
The shadows played tricks on my perception, but something deeper guided me. A shift in air pressure. The faintest sound of mechanical movement before a dummy lunged. I reacted before the red light illuminated it fully.
When I exited, sweat-soaked and breathless, Vale's expression was unreadable.
"They'll want to see this," Vale murmured more to herself than to me.
"Who?" I asked before I could stop myself.
Vale's gaze snapped to mine.
"Phase Three evaluators."
A chill ran down my spine.
That night, sleep didn't come easily. The bunker's hum seemed louder than usual. My thoughts spun in restless circles. I had started this training driven by one purpose: find my family. Prove myself useful enough to gain access to answers.
But now I wondered if I was walking directly into something far larger than I understood.
The following week, the separation became official. An announcement came during morning assembly. "Certain candidates will now transition to specialized programming," the head instructor declared. Names were called one by one, mine was last.
Murmurs rippled through the room.
Maya squeezed my hand briefly before they parted. "Don't let them change you," she whispered urgently.
I didn't know what that meant—but it echoed in my mind as I followed Vale down the corridor once more.
The specialized wing operated on a different schedule. I no longer attended communal meals; trays were delivered to a small briefing room where I reviewed tactical footage between bites. The footage was grainy, depicting chaotic outdoor environments—ruined streets, abandoned buildings, smoke rising in the distance.
"This is what remains above," Vale said once, tapping the screen.
My breath caught. "Above?"
Vale didn't elaborate.
The implication alone was enough.
The world outside the bunker wasn't stable. It wasn't safe. Whatever had driven them underground hadn't resolved, and maybe—just maybe—that was why families had been separated. To reduce emotional interference. To prevent hesitation. The realization settled heavily in my chest.
During combat evaluation, they introduced live opponents—adult trainees wearing protective gear. Larger. Stronger. Faster than any of the children upstairs.
The first time I stepped into the ring against one of them, my pulse thundered in my ears.
"Remember," Vale said quietly before the bell sounded. "They will not go easy."
The opponent attacked immediately, testing my guard with rapid strikes. The force behind them nearly drove me backward, but I adjusted my stance, grounding myself. I absorbed, redirected, countered. A sharp elbow to the side of his helmeted head made him stagger. The match stretched longer than expected. When I finally disarmed him and forced him to the mat, pinning his wrist in a lock tight enough to make him tap out, the room fell silent.
Vale stepped forward, studying the defeated trainee, then me.
"Again," Vale said.
Three rounds later, I stood victorious each time. Something had shifted in the way the adults looked at me. Not just evaluation anymore. Expectation.
That evening, Vale didn't dismiss me immediately.
"You understand that Phase Three is operational deployment," Vale said, arms crossed behind her back.
My stomach tightened. "Deployment where?"
"Wherever you are needed."
"For what?" I pressed carefully.
Vale held her gaze for a long moment. "To ensure survival."
The vagueness was deliberate.
But in that moment, I understood something critical: this bunker wasn't just a shelter.
It was a forge. They were shaping weapons, and I was at the center of the fire.
As I returned to my quarters later than usual, Maya sat up immediately.
"They took you somewhere new again," Maya said softly.
I nodded.
"What are they doing to you?"
I hesitated, searching for words that didn't sound frightening. "They're preparing me."
"For what?"
I looked at my friend—the only constant in a place built on secrecy—and felt the weight of truth pressing against my ribs.
"I think," I said slowly, "they're preparing me to go back outside."
Maya's face went pale. Outside had become a myth inside the bunker. A word rarely spoken.
"You don't even know what's out there," Maya whispered.
"No," I agreed quietly. "But I think they do."
Silence stretched between them.
For the first time since arriving, fear threaded through my confidence—not fear of fighting, but fear of what fighting meant. Of what I might have to become. Yet beneath that fear, something else flickered. Resolve.
If Phase Three meant access—access to information, to leadership, to answers—then I would reach it.
I would endure whatever they threw at me.
Because somewhere, whether above ground or in another hidden sector of steel and concrete, my family existed, and I was getting stronger. Stronger than the bunker expected. Stronger than they had planned. And when Phase Three finally began, I intended not just to survive it—but to uncover the truth buried beneath it.
The shift to weapons training happened quietly, like everything else in the bunker.
One morning, instead of leading me toward the simulation corridors, Commander Vale guided me to a reinforced steel door I hadn't seen before. A guard scanned a keycard, then placed his palm against a biometric reader. The lock disengaged with a heavy mechanical click.
Inside was a firing range. The air smelled faintly metallic, tinged with oil and something sharper I recognized only after a moment—gunpowder. Lanes stretched forward, each ending in a paper silhouette target mounted against thick ballistic padding. Overhead lights cast everything in sterile brightness.
My pulse quickened.
On a long metal table lay several firearms, disassembled with precise neatness.
Vale stopped beside the table. "Up until now," she said evenly, "you have been the weapon. Today, you learn to extend that."
I swallowed but nodded.
Vale showed me how to clear a chamber, how to check a magazine, how to verify a weapon was safe without assuming it was. Every motion deliberate. Every instruction repeated until my hands performed the sequence without hesitation.
"Confidence without discipline gets people killed," Vale said, watching me closely. "Yours. Or someone else's."
When they finally assembled the handgun and placed it in my grip, its weight surprised me. Solid. Real. Heavier than it looked.
"Stance," Vale instructed.
I adjusted automatically—feet planted, knees bent, arms extended but not locked. The recoil from my first shot jolted through my arms, louder than I had expected despite the ear protection. The sound reverberated in my chest.
The bullet struck low on the target.
"Again," Vale said.
I exhaled slowly this time, controlling my breathing the way I had learned during endurance drills. Inhale. Steady. Exhale halfway. Squeeze—don't jerk—the trigger. The second shot landed closer to center. By the tenth round, my grouping tightened. Not perfect. But controlled.
Vale studied the target, then me. "You don't flinch."
I hadn't realized that was unusual. They increased the distance. Then introduced timed drills.
A buzzer would sound without warning, and I had seconds to draw, aim, and fire accurately. At first, my movements were efficient but cautious. By the end of the session, they were fluid. There was no exhilaration in it. Only focus.
The next week expanded into rifles. The weight shifted differently against my shoulder. The recoil was heavier but more predictable. I learned sight alignment, breath control, trigger discipline. They ran drills where targets moved along tracks, forcing me to track and fire in controlled bursts.
I adapted faster than they expected. I could see it in Vale's eyes.
"Your hand stability under stress is exceptional," Vale remarked one afternoon after a rapid-fire sequence that left her forearms buzzing.
"What does that mean?" I asked.
"It means your nervous system doesn't spike the way most do."
The observation lingered. Was that good? Or engineered? There were no answers—only progression.
After firearms came blades. The training room changed again. Instead of padded corridors, they entered a chamber with wooden target boards lining the far wall. On a nearby rack rested rows of balanced throwing knives—sleek, identical, lethal in their simplicity.
Vale picked one up and handed it to me hilt-first.
"A firearm can fail," Vale said. "A blade cannot jam. It does not run out of ammunition. It does not announce itself before impact."
I weighed the knife in my hand. It felt different than the guns. More intimate. The first throws were clumsy. The blade struck flat or missed entirely, clattering to the floor.
"Precision comes from consistency," Vale said. "Same grip. Same motion. Every time."
I adjusted my stance, stepping back to mark distance. Drew my arm behind my shoulder. Released.
The knife spun once and struck the board tip-first, though off-center. Something inside me sharpened. I retrieved it and tried again, and again. By the end of the session, more than half my throws embedded within the inner ring of the target silhouette.
Vale moved me farther back.
"Combat distance won't always be convenient," she said.
I practiced until my shoulder ached.
Soon, throwing became secondary to close-quarters blade work. How to hold a knife in reverse grip. How to defend against it. How to disarm without slicing open my own forearm in the process.
In one drill, Vale attacked without warning, rubber training blade flashing toward my ribs. I reacted instinctively, trapping Vale's wrist, twisting, stepping inside the arc of the strike before it completed.
The blade clattered to the mat. They froze in that position—my breath steady, Vale's eyes locked on mine.
"You're anticipating again," Vale murmured.
It wasn't accusation. It was confirmation.
As the weeks passed, the weapon sessions grew more complex. They combined firearms and movement—clear a corner, assess threat, transition to sidearm, reload while advancing. Then integrate a blade when ammunition "ran out."
My body absorbed it all like a blueprint unfolding. But with every new skill mastered, the weight of it settled heavier. These were not defensive drills for frightened children. These were offensive capabilities.
One evening, after an especially grueling session that left my hands smelling of metal and oil, I returned to my room later than usual. Maya sat cross-legged on the bunk, eyes wide.
"You smell like the range," Maya said quietly.
I paused. "You've been there?"
"Once," Maya admitted. "They took a small group for basic instruction. Just target practice."
There was something unspoken in the air.
"They're teaching you more, aren't they?" Maya asked.
I didn't lie. "Yes."
Maya's expression tightened—not with jealousy, but worry. "That means they're planning something."
"I know."
"What if it's not about protecting us?" Maya whispered.
The question echoed my own private fears.
Later that night, alone with my thoughts, I replayed the sound of gunfire in my mind. The recoil. The steady tightening of my shot group. The satisfying thunk of a knife striking dead center.
I should have felt disturbed. Instead, I felt capable. That realization unsettled me more than anything.
The following day, Vale brought me back to the simulation room—but this time armed. The targets weren't static silhouettes. They were pop-up mechanisms triggered at random intervals. Some represented threats. Others were marked as non-threats.
"Identify before you fire," Vale instructed. "Hesitation is dangerous. So is impulse."
The drill began. A figure popped up to my right—weapon silhouette raised. I fired once, center mass. Another appeared ahead—hands raised, no weapon marking. I held my fire.
A third emerged behind partial cover. I shifted position, angled for a clearer shot, and fired. The sequence accelerated. My breathing remained steady. When it ended, Vale reviewed the data on her tablet.
"No civilian hits," Vale said. "Response time above benchmark."
I lowered the weapon slowly. Above benchmark. Each evaluation pushed me closer to something undefined but inevitable.
Before dismissing me, Vale studied me for a long moment.
"You're not asking questions anymore," Vale observed.
I met her gaze. "Would you answer them?"
A faint, almost imperceptible curve touched Vale's lips. "Not yet."
That night, sleep felt heavier. Not from exhaustion—but from awareness. I had crossed another threshold. I could now dismantle someone with my hands. I could strike accurately from across a room. I could end a threat silently with a blade. And the bunker was still keeping secrets.
As I lay in the artificial darkness, I flexed my fingers slowly, feeling the strength in them. The steadiness. They were building me into something precise. Controlled. Lethal.
The question was no longer whether I would reach Phase Three. It was whether Phase Three would unleash me—or reveal the true reason I had been chosen in the first place.
Phase Three did not arrive with celebration or warning. It arrived with escalation.
They brought adults in—fully trained operators who had completed every level before me. They were taller, stronger, seasoned by years of discipline and experience. I was still a child by every visible measure. Smaller frame. Younger face. Shorter reach. It did not matter.
The first evaluation took place in the largest combat chamber I had ever seen inside the bunker. The lighting was brighter than usual, observation panels lining the upper walls.
I could feel eyes on me from behind reinforced glass. This was not training. This was assessment.
The first operator moved cautiously, clearly instructed not to underestimate me. He tested my guard, probing for weakness. I didn't wait for him to find one. I stepped inside his reach before he could extend his advantage, striking at pressure points I had memorized through repetition. When he attempted to overpower me, I redirected his force and used his own balance against him. He hit the mat hard. There was no cheering. No reaction. Only notation.
The second operator was faster, more tactical. He used feints, forced angles, tried to bait me into predictable patterns. I didn't follow them. My body reacted before the deception could settle. I countered, locked his arm at the joint, and forced him down. He yielded with visible strain.
One after another they came. Different styles. Different rhythms. Different strategies. One after another they fell. It wasn't rage that fueled me. It wasn't adrenaline. It was clarity. Every movement felt inevitable, like I was stepping into motions already written somewhere inside me. I adapted faster than they adjusted. I anticipated before they committed.
By the final match, the room had gone completely silent. The last operator circled me longer than the others had. He waited for a mistake. I gave him none. When he lunged, I pivoted, destabilized him, and brought him down in one controlled sequence that ended with him pinned and unable to move.
When it was over, Commander Vale stepped forward. There was no smile on her face, only certainty.
"You have exceeded all physical benchmarks," she said evenly. "Phase Three continues."