momentum belongs to who
Sweat drowned his lashes. His sight stung. He couldn't focus, couldn't see.
He'd already ripped off his sleeveless compression shirt soaked and heavy now clinging to his fingers like seaweed.
Gabriel was already moving.
The plan had started to form the moment his vision began to blur now, it was in motion.
He dropped to one knee, grabbing the soaked compression shirt in both hands.
Sweat spilled out as he gripped it warm and heavy, squeezing through his fingers like juice from a crushed fruit.
The fabric clung like wet skin, stubborn and slick.
But he pulled hard, stretching it wide, testing its resistance
More sweat streamed out, trailing down his forearms.
It held firm, the material straining but refusing to tear.
Of course it does, he thought. It's built to hold you in.
To grip, to compress, to resist.
That was the point.
And now, it was exactly what he needed.
His back molars dug in first, then his canines. He clenched, pulled, jerked with his neck and arms in opposite directions.
He clenched his jaw. The first fibers gave way with a dry snap.
ripped a strip loose
"SKRRTCH!"
The sharp, grating sound of tearing elastic sliced through the heavy air, louder than it had any right to be.
Then more.
He turned his head, bit through the fabric like an animal, grinding and tugging, using the friction of his teeth and the sweat-slick grip of his fists.
Across the arena, Rocky hesitated, one brow raised.
"What the hell are you doing?" he barked.
"The heat got to your head already?"
But Gabriel didn't respond.
When the tear was deep enough, he ripped it the rest of the way with brute force, splitting the fabric into two long bands.
Not perfect but long enough to work.
Gabriel took one strip, twisted it, and wrapped it low across his forehead and temples. He was already tying the strip around his forehead tight just above the brows.
A makeshift sweatband. Crude. But effective.
He pulled the ends around the back of his head and knotted it tight. The second strip? He tied it loosely around his neck, letting it hang to catch sweat or cover his mouth if breathing got worse.
Gabriel's MonologueThe forehead produces the most sweat.
Tighten the band, and the sweat reroutes down the sides or into the cloth.
I can't stop my body from overheating… but I can stop it from blinding me.He weaponized my biology. Now I weaponize it back.He exhaled slowly.
"Control the heat," he whispered not to intimidate but to anchor himself. A mantra. A mindset.
With the sweat no longer flooding his eyes, his thoughts began to sharpen.
Focus returned. Breath slowed.
And with that one small act of control, his mind followed.
Across the arena, something shifted.
Rocky's smirk faltered, his eyes narrowing not from confidence, but from calculation.
He finally understood what Gabriel had done and he didn't like it.
This wasn't just a trick.
It was a reset a shift in the status quo.
The lines between predator and prey had blurred once again.
It was the moment where momentum no longer belonged to either of them
but hovered in the balance, waiting to be claimed.
And Rocky knew exactly where it was heading.
TThe air between them thickened, charged with tension.
Gabriel stood tall through the haze, a grin curling at the corners of his mouth despite the heat.
His gaze locked onto Rocky unblinking, steady.
His eyes flared violet once more.
Then came the sound.
A deep, mechanical groan from below
SKRNNNK… THRMMM…
The noise rumbled from Gabriel's thighs and legs as his tendons tightened, pulling and winding beneath his skin like steel cables under pressure.
The floor beneath him vibrated faintly.
It sounded like something heavy and alive was being compressed inside his lower body ready to explode.
Rocky froze, a cold sweat slipping down his neck.
"Whaaa... what was that?" he muttered, his voice low and dry. He gulped
because deep down, he already knew the answer.
" the seventy percent tension I told you about?
Gabriel slowly opened his eyes.
The eyes flared violet once again.
Rocky hesitated for half a breath then shook it off.
This was no time to second-guess.
He still had one shot left. One plan.
Knock off the sweatband. Blind the eyes. End it.
He could already feel his muscles locking up tendons trembling, arms pulsing with overuse.
Just a little longer and his body might betray him.
So he clenched his fists, grit his teeth, and charged.
"Time I push past my limits too!" Rocky roared, sprinting into range.
His fists flew.
First came a wide hook, then a straight cross a powerful combination designed to force Gabriel into a lean or backstep.
BOOM—BOOM!
Compressed air burst from his knuckles with each punch, each shot hammering the space Gabriel had just moved from.
But Rocky didn't stop.
He moved like a piston uppercut from below, shooting air upward to disorient.
Then he flowed into a relentless, punishing rhythm.
Jab, jab to the body, then a crushing cross to the ribs
a classic misdirection. Light taps to lower Gabriel's guard, then a power shot to break through it.
Jab, cross to the body, then hook to the head
shift the target low, then twist through the hips and torque into a dangerous curve aimed at the side of the skull.
Jab to the body, jab to the face, cross to the centerline
keeping Gabriel's eyes busy, forcing him to split his attention high and low.
Jab, step back, jab, cross
bait him in, retreat, and then slam compressed air forward again.
Each punch was a blast.
Each sequence fired 500 PSI shockwaves like cannon bursts through the air.
The entire arena rang with it FWUMP CRACK BOOM!
To the untrained eye, it looked like chaos.
But there was rhythm to it. A violent cadence, drawn from hours of training and repetition.
Rocky wasn't just throwing punches, he was breaking space.
Firing invisible walls of pressure to trap Gabriel and rip off the sweatband by force.
But Gabriel was already shifting before the wind-up finished.
"Your damn eyes are definitely back," Rocky muttered, frustration tightening in his throat.
"You dodged all of that? Seriously?"