Finn Faraway's Arc

Chapter 1 of 1

Finn Faraway had six weeks to earn a spot in the gauntlet, and no one in Pino would spar him twice. The last three had walked out of the training pit rubbing broken ribs. Word spread. Now the barracks gym stayed empty when he showed up, boots ringing on the grated floor. He needed a fight that could hurt him. The gauntlet crowned one cyborg the strongest in the city, and Finn wanted the belt. He also wanted to survive the first round. His arm servos were faster than his brain. If a real fighter feinted, he would commit early and eat a counter. He had to teach his reflexes to wait. Bags didn't feint. People wouldn't stay. He went outside the wall. Past the fortress towers with their glowing seams, past the last checkpoint, the ground turned to broken plating and moss-eaten circuit board. Scavengers said the wilds bred cyber-vermin the army couldn't finish. Finn had heard about the scorpions. Armored. Fast. A tail that punched venom through steel. He found a dented supply crate half-buried in the moss and used it as bait, kicking it until the hollow boom carried. Then he waited with his sword low. It came out of a drainage split. Black plates, pink circuit lines, claws the size of his forearm. The tail cocked before he saw the body move. He read the twitch and stepped. The stinger punched the crate where his hip had been. He cut. The blade skipped off armor. The claw took him in the ribs and threw him against a fern of pale crystal that shattered under his shoulder. Glass light sprayed across the moss. His side registered damage in a cold white number behind his eye. Good. That was the problem. He had been reading the number instead of the fight. He got up. The scorpion circled. He forced his arms to hold, hold, hold, until the tail committed. It struck. He slipped left, drove the blade under the plate joint, and twisted. The stinger stuck in the dirt beside his boot. He sawed through the tail and rolled clear. The thing kept coming on eight legs, jaws working. He took the head off at the second joint. Sparks. Then quiet. He sat down in the wet moss and breathed. His ribs were open. His coat was ruined. But his hands had waited. For the first time in a month, his reflexes had obeyed him. He looked at the drainage split. Something else was scraping inside it. Then something in the pipes further out. The wilds were listening now, and they had heard where the crate boomed. Finn wiped the blade on his sleeve. He had found his sparring partner. The problem was that it had family, and he was bleeding, and the checkpoint was a long walk back.