Dorian Vance (3)

Dorian woke to the sound of water dripping.

His back was pressed against something cold—metal. His arms were too weak to move, and every breath scraped like glass down his throat.

The air was musty. Tasting of mold, piss, and old rust.

He tried to sit up, but pain exploded through his spine, and he collapsed back with a groan.

Then the yelling started.

"You STUPID, WORTHLESS FREAK!"

Gallo's voice was thunder through the bars.

Dorian blinked, eyes crusted with blood and sweat. The light in the room was dim, leaking through a single hanging bulb outside the cage he now found himself locked in.

"You think that was a win?" Gallo bellowed, kicking the bars. "You think that helped me? That kid you tore apart had sponsors! He had backers! They're going to come for me now!"

Dorian tried to speak, but his throat was dry. He barely got the words out.

"…I thought… you wanted me to win…"

"WIN?!" Gallo screamed, voice cracking with rage. "Not like that! Not like a monster! You ruined everything!"

He paced in front of the cage, breathing heavy, foaming with fury. Dorian tried to crawl backward, but there was nowhere to go—just cold bars and filth.

Gallo stopped pacing.

He reached off to the side and picked up something gleaming—a long, thin knife.

"You want to fight like a beast?" he muttered. "Then I'll carve you like one."

Dorian's eyes widened. "No—no, wait—"

The door creaked open. Gallo stepped inside and slashed down across Dorian's back.

Agony. White-hot, breath-stealing, mind-numbing agony.

Dorian screamed—loud and raw, the kind of scream that came from the soul and not the throat. Blood poured freely down his side, coating his hip, pooling on the floor.

Then another slash.

And another.

The knife didn't stab—it peeled, tearing strips of skin away from muscle. His back became a map of pain, of fire and wetness and ragged breath.

Gallo's voice was manic now. He wasn't even speaking in full sentences anymore. Just curses. Spit. Rage.

Then he dropped the knife and pulled something else from his coat.

A pistol.

He leveled it at Dorian's head.

The cage seemed smaller now. The world tighter.

Dorian stared at the black hole of the barrel. His body was too wrecked to move. His vision tunneled.

This is it, he thought. This is how it ends.

He clenched his eyes shut—

BANG.

Silence.

Dorian gasped—still alive.

He opened his eyes slowly, expecting pain. But there was none.

Instead, he saw Gallo standing perfectly still, his eyes wide, mouth slightly open.

A thin trail of blood ran from the center of his forehead.

Then he collapsed. Hard. Dead weight hitting the floor with a wet slap.

Dorian flinched, then froze.

Standing behind the fallen body, framed by the glow of the hallway light, was a man.

The same man from the fight.

Still in a plain coat. Still calm. Holding a smoking gun.

He didn't speak.

He just looked down at Dorian through the bars, expression unreadable.

And for a moment, Dorian stopped breathing.

The silence stretched long after Gallo's body hit the ground.

The man with the smoking gun stepped forward, slow and deliberate. His footsteps echoed off the concrete floor, each one growing louder in Dorian's ears until they filled the whole world.

Dorian tried to speak but coughed instead, pain seizing his entire torso. Blood was still leaking down his back. His arms quivered, barely keeping him upright.

The man stopped just outside the cage door. He reached into his coat again—not for another weapon, but for something small and metallic.

A key.

Click.

The cage door creaked open.

Dorian flinched, trying to push himself backward, but he had nowhere to go. His body was a battlefield. Everything hurt.

The man knelt in front of him, just outside arm's reach. Calm eyes scanned him—not with pity, not with disgust, but with a kind of quiet calculation. Clinical, yet… human.

"Dorian, right?"

Dorian didn't answer. His breathing was ragged. His eyes darted between the man and the gun still holstered at his hip.

The man nodded slightly.

"My name is Agent Callow. I'm with an organization called OTA—the Organization of Temporal Anomaly." He said it flatly, as if it explained everything.

It didn't.

Dorian just stared at him.

"I've been watching you for a while now." Callow continued. "Tonight confirmed what I needed to see."

Dorian coughed again, squinting through the blood and sweat. His lips cracked as he finally rasped, "Why… why help me?"

Callow looked at the broken boy in front of him—fifteen, six foot four, barely alive but still upright.

"Because we take people like you," he said quietly, "and give them a reason to keep surviving."

Dorian's head hung. He wanted to believe him. But his body, his life, everything he'd known told him not to.

Callow didn't press. He didn't beg.

He simply reached out.

A hand. Open. Waiting.

Dorian looked at it for a long time.

He didn't trust him. Not fully.

But he also knew that if he stayed in this place a second longer, he wouldn't live to see tomorrow.

He took the hand.

Callow's grip was firm, steady, and Dorian used it to pull himself up—slowly, trembling, until he was on his feet again.

The pain roared across his back like fire. His vision swam. But he stood.

Callow slipped his arm under Dorian's and steadied him.

"Let's get you out of here," he said.

And for the first time in his life, Dorian didn't feel like he was walking alone.

___________________________________________________________________________________________________________

"Wow."

Those were the only words that Clancy could muster out. He couldn't fathom living such a life, much less from someone that was so close in age to him. When he was 15, Clancy was still an idiot. He would cry if he stubbed his toe. He worried about his acne. Sure, he trained like hell from martial arts at that age from his father, but he never trained to the point of killing. He was never desperate and never truly wanted to for anything. All of these revelations from peering into Dorian's life showed Clancy that he had truly been sheltered from a young age.

Luca, although silent, seemed less shocked. Clancy couldn't understand why, but he had the impression that Luca came from a similar background. Although he didn't intend on asking him if he didn't feel like sharing it with him. 

Luca, sensing some tension between the three of them, decided to ask a question.

"So what's with the tattoos then?"

Dorian raised his head and looked at Luca.

"Oh, yes. Well, the agent that took me in was quite nice. And he was also a man that was very into tattoos. I'm sure you'll meet him eventually if you're here long enough. He gave me the tattoo on my back to hide the scars I have. And also to remind me of my past."

His back was massive, and in the center was a large phoenix, made up of thick block like lines. 13 lines, with the middle line being golden, representing the 1 win he had in the fighting ring, and the 12 losses he had as well. 

Clancy thought for a moment, and then spoke.

"So what're you doing here then? What's the point in joining the OTA? I know your savior was an agent but did he force you to become one as well?"

Dorian chuckled.

"No, of course not. He would never. I joined of my own accord. I wish to find peace. Fights are the only thing I am good at. And so I must use it to save those who cannot fight. Those weaker. Because I know what it is like to lose. How painful it is. How desperate people can be. And I do not wish for others to feel that pain."

"Anyways, it was a good fight from you this afternoon."

With that, Dorian got up and left. His imposing figure wasn't as intimidating. Instead there was a sense of comfort and peace behind it now. 

___________________________________________________________________________________________________________

The next few months blurred into a rhythm of repetition and rigor.

Each day began before the sun rose and ended long after it set, marked by the echo of commands, the impact of bodies hitting the mat, and the sting of failure. Clancy was thrown more times than he could count—by instructors, by Dorian, even by Evelyn on occasion. Every bruise and ache reminded him how far behind he was. And yet, he kept getting up. Even when his arms trembled and his breath came ragged, he got up.

The OTA didn't just push his body—they stripped him down and rebuilt him. Precision shooting, close-quarters combat, endurance drills that left his lungs burning. Each challenge shaved off who he had been and honed who he was becoming. He learned to read patterns, to react without hesitation, to anticipate pain and still press forward. Strength didn't arrive in a sudden burst—it came in inches, hidden in sore muscles and small victories.

Through the grind, bonds began to form.

Luca, the Italian combat specialist with a sharp grin and a sharper hook, became an older brother of sorts—always the first to challenge Clancy, but also the first to pick him up when he fell. Evelyn remained distant at first, her focus laser-tight and guarded, but Clancy noticed the quiet gestures: the way she handed him water after a hard session or corrected his stance without a word. Their conversations started brief, but over time, laughter crept in, and so did trust.

And Dorian—once a towering mystery—became something more. There was a silent understanding between them, forged in shared bruises and nods after sparring matches that left them both wrecked. Dorian never spoke much, but when he did, it mattered. He respected Clancy, and Clancy knew he had earned it.

Time didn't slow. The days passed like a montage, brutal and unrelenting. But by the end of that stretch, Clancy was different. Harder. Faster. Sharper.

And no longer alone.