Two days after, Rus found himself in a gym that smelled like sweat, regret, and recycled protein bars. Foster stood across from him in the ring, wiping his nose like he was preparing for a championship bout, even though they both knew this was more about boredom than glory.
"You're still mad I signed you up for the fight club," he said, ducking behind his gloves.
Rus didn't answer. He just punched him in the ribs.
"Yeah, you're mad," he wheezed, retreating a step.
It wasn't just muscle memory anymore. Ever since the last deployment, something new had been ticking inside Rus's brain. Little red indicators popped up in his peripheral vision like someone had modded his natural retinas with a Quick-Time Event overlay. A faint glow would flash on the corner of his eye, and his body would move before he even thought about it.
Block. Weave. Counter.
He wasn't thinking about it, really. Just pressing invisible buttons in the air like he was trying to cheat at life.
Foster lunged with a half-assed jab. The vision flashed. Rus slipped under it, twisted, and clipped him square in the jaw.
He dropped like a sack of expired MREs. Sprawled flat, arms out, legs twitching like a defibrillated corpse.
"Motherfucker," he groaned from the floor. "That was not a friendly punch."
Dan leaned over the ropes, arms crossed, eyebrows arched.
"You're getting too good," he muttered.
"Blame Foster," Rus said. "He wanted me in that fight club club."
Foster, still on the floor, raised a shaky hand. "Worth it."
Then Dan climbed in.
It was like fighting a refrigerator with rage issues. He came in heavy and fast, fists like bricks wrapped in attitude. But that indicator flared again, glowing dimly in his sight. His body adjusted. He didn't even dodge so much as flow.
Left. Right. Hit. Step. Pivot. Duck. Hit again.
Dan grunted, teeth clenched. "Seriously, what the fuck is this?"
"Talent," Rus said.
"Bullshit," he barked, stumbling from a rib shot that made him suck wind.
Rus's footwork, his strikes, everything synced to those flashing lights. His own body felt less like his and more like it belonged to something smarter. Something built for this.
Rus clipped him once more, just above the liver, and Dan dropped to a knee, coughing out what he assumed was the last shred of his dignity.
"Fucking hell," he groaned. "You got some cheat code running or what?"
"Maybe," Rus said. "If I start glowing and speaking in tongues, put a bullet in me."
Dan coughed a laugh. "You glow, I'm filming it. That's going straight to the archive. Beside, TRU will get you first."
Rus offered a hand. He slapped it away and pulled himself up with a grunt. "You're buying the drinks tonight."
Rus didn't argue. Mostly because he was too focused on the glowing reticle in his vision, now fading away as if it had done its job.
Something had changed in him. Evolved, maybe. Was it because he killed a lot of monsters and that accumulated experience leveled him up?
Damn it, at least give me a system panel or something!
Or maybe he was finally losing his mind in high definition.
Either way?
He liked it
The gym got a little quieter when Berta walked in. That kind of quiet where everyone's still breathing, but suddenly unsure how much longer they'll be allowed to.
She strode in like she owned the floor and maybe she did. Her usual swagger painted across every step, tank top soaked with sweat, hair tied back, eyes gleaming with that feral spark that meant someone was about to get groped, punched, or both.
Her gaze locked onto him.
And unfortunately, Rus was shirtless.
"Daaamn," she said, drawing the word out like it was something sinful. "Look at you, Wilson. You've always been holding out on me."
Rus rolled his eyes and grabbed a towel. "God. Don't start, Berta."
Too late. She practically licked her lips, not even subtle about it. "I'm just appreciating the view. Hard not to when your torso looks like it was chiseled by some angry god."
"Appreciate it from over there."
She stepped into the ring.
"Let's spar."
"No."
"C'mon. I'll go easy on you."
She climbed the ropes like a jungle cat, hopped in with the grace of someone who knew her way around a fight and a bed and pointed a gloved hand at him. "C'mon. One round."
Rus groaned. "Berta, last time I warned you that my fists are proudly unisex."
She grinned. "Good. So are mine. Now stop whining and hit me like you mean it."
The room went quiet. Dan muttered something under his breath and backed up. Foster, ever the masochist, scrambled to the corner with a grin on his bruised face like he was about to see a gladiator bout with sexual tension as the main sponsor.
They squared off.
And Rus stopped holding back. The accumulation of grievances he had suffered snapping him into action.
This wasn't a spar. This was personal.
Rus moved like something had taken over his limbs. The red indicators flickered in his vision again — left dodge, low cross, rotate hips and he followed them like scripture. His body obeyed the flashes without hesitation, like some part of him had decided to stop giving a damn about playing nice.
The first jab came with enough force to stagger her. Berta laughed.
"Oh, you've really been holding out on me."
Rus rolled under her haymaker, struck twice, a right to the ribs, a left to her temple. She grinned even as her head snapped sideways.
"You're trying to kill me," she said, half-laughing, half-winded.
"Yes," Rus replied, weaving under her jab. "And you're welcome."
Her footwork was too fast for someone built like a tall Amazonian, but the indicators guided Rus. He stayed ahead of her. Slipped under a hook. Countered with a tight cross. His knuckles dug into her side, and she let out a sharp cough.
Then moaned.
"Fuck. That hit was so good I'm wet."
"Gods damn it," Rus muttered, circling her. "You need a psychiatrist and a cold shower."
She grinned, but there was tension now. Her eyes narrowed. She lunged forward and grabbed his arm, trying to twist it into a lock.
Rus let her.
Then he pivoted, twisted, and broke her hold. His fist came up in a tight arc, hammering into her jaw with a hook that sang with pure kinetic rage.
Crack.
She went down hard. Not like a ragdoll—like a statue that had been kicked off a pedestal.
Everyone froze.
Even the indicators blinked out, as if to say, "Well, that's done."
Berta lay there for a moment, blinking up at the ceiling. Her mouth worked open and closed once like she was about to speak—then she coughed and muttered, "...fuck, that was hot."
She fainted.
Rus grabbed a towel, stepping back from the ring. "Somebody get her a medic. Or a vibrator. I'm not picky."
Dan let out a wheeze. "You killed her libido."
"Impossible," Rus said. "That thing's nuclear."
Foster just stood there, mouth agape. "Did you just knock out Berta?"
Rus pointed at the ring. "Does that look like a gentle nap?"
Dan let out a low whistle. "We're all going to die."
"She'll walk it off," Rus muttered, already walking away. "Or crawl. Or hump the floor until she gets her balance back."
Behind Rus, Berta suddenly groaned and slurred something about "round two."
Rus left before she could coax into him another spar.
Later that evening, as Rus leaned back against a crate near the mess tent, questioning every life choice that had led to him punching a hormonal hurricane like Berta in the jaw, Stacy strolled up. Hair tied back, boots dusty, that smirk of hers locked and loaded.
She folded her arms, one eyebrow raised in that way that said she was about to dig into something juicy. "So," she said. "What's the strategy here, Wilson?"
Rus squinted at her. "What strategy?"
Stacy tilted her head, lips twitching. "You've officially done everything in your power to sexually frustrate Berta. You knocked her out. In front of everyone. With your shirt off too. And that's her fetish."
"Not on purpose," Rus muttered, staring into the distance like a man reliving war crimes.
"Mmm." She walked a slow circle around him. "You're not playing coy, are you? You really weren't trying to rile her up?"
"No," Rus said, flatly.
She laughed. "That's the best part. You're not even trying. You just exist, and now she's going through a sexual identity crisis mixed with a concussion she's still moaning."
Rus sighed. "Great. Maybe I've finally weaponized celibacy."
Stacy leaned in. "You know what this makes you, right?"
Rus side-eyed her. "A guy who made a horrible mistake?"
"A guy who knocked out Berta," she said, voice full of faux-reverence. "Which, by her standards, makes you either her soulmate… or her next fetish."
Rus's eye twitched. "I wonder if I can fake being knocked out."
Stacy snorted, then leaned close, dropping her voice to a mock-whisper. "If you do, she'll probably climb on and ravage your unconscious body."
Rus went still.
She patted his shoulder. "So maybe… don't."
Rus nodded solemnly. "Mental note: never be unconscious around Berta."
"Or asleep. Or shirtless. Or vulnerable in any physical, emotional, or spiritual sense."
"Got it," Rus muttered. "I'll sleep in armor from now on."
She started walking away, waving lazily over her shoulder.
Berta found Rus behind the motor pool later that evening. Rus quietly contemplating whether developing superhuman fists was worth the existential price tag. She didn't stomp in like usual. No swagger. No cocky grin. Just her boots crunching over gravel and that silence that said she was thinking too hard.
Which, frankly, was terrifying.
She stopped in front of Rus, arms crossed—not in that smug "I'm about to make you regret being born" way, but in that weird, "I'm about to say something I might actually mean" way. Rus blinked at her like she'd grown a second head.
"You okay?" Rus asked, warily. "You look like someone replaced your brain with a manual on professionalism."
Berta stared at Rus. Then she said, in an actual calm, level voice, "I respect you."
Rus froze.
Rus narrowed his eyes. "...Did I punch the innuendos out of you?"
A short breath came out of her. Almost a laugh. "No. But you did knock me into clarity."
Rus squinted harder. "This isn't a setup, is it? No sudden 'I want you to dominate me in the gym again, daddy' follow-up?"
Berta shook her head. "No games. No jokes. Look, Wilson... There's a lot of assholes in this job. A lot of people who play tough, talk big, but they don't mean it. You're the first guy I've met who doesn't just talk like he's serious. You are serious. You treat this shit for what it is. Life and death."
Rus blinked, caught somewhere between flattered and waiting for the punchline.
She continued, voice still steady. "You could've been a misogynist. A purist. Hell, for a while, I thought you were just a stuck-up bastard with a stick so far up your ass it needed its own name. But you've been straight with me. You call me out on my crap. You don't want anything from me. And you still treat me like a soldier. "
Rus stared. He was pretty sure he was being rude, treating her like a super barrack's bunny.
She looked away, a little self-conscious, which he never thought possible. "I get read by people like a book, Wilson. Half of them think I'm easy. The other half think I'm broken. You? You never gave a shit. So yeah. You knocked me on my ass. And it worked. I get it now"
Rus cleared my throat. "So what you're saying is… punching you was character development?"
"Basically."
Rus sighed, rubbing his temples. "Gods. I've solved horny with violence."
She chuckled at that. Not a lewd laugh, not a flirt. Just a real, tired laugh.
"Maybe next time," Rus muttered, "you could try personal growth without needing a right hook to the face."
"No promises," she said, a smile tugging at her lips.
They stood there for a moment. The world quiet. Just the hum of generators and the distant clang of someone probably breaking regulations in the vehicle bay.
"So," Rus said. "What now? Are you gonna write poetry or something?"
"I said I respect you, Wilson. Don't make me regret it."
"Too late. I'm already drafting the obituary for your libido."
She laughed again. "You're still an ass."
"And you're still terrifying. But I suppose we'll call this progress."
And somehow, in the weirdest way possible, it was.