Caim’s Training

The applause from the tournament still echoed faintly through the compound walls as Caim Lykaios stood alone at the center of

the arena, sweat already drying on his skin.

He wasn't smiling.

Where others laughed, bantered, or replayed the highlights of Flare's flip on Marcos like kids with their favorite fight clips, Caim stayed still. His knuckles were white, curled at his sides. The adrenaline hadn't faded—it was shifting, hardening, carving itself into purpose.

Marcos noticed it first. He clapped once to get everyone's attention, his voice crisp.

"Clear the floor. Leave the mess. Caim stays."

The squad fell silent.

Flare stepped forward, picking up a towel as he passed, and tossed it into a nearby bench. "Let's get this over with."

Claire tilted her head. "You sure you're doing this now? You just fought like hell."

Flare looked at her, eyes unreadable. "That's why it has to be now."

Marcos nodded in agreement. "Pain teaches best when it's shared."

The rest of the team filtered out—some reluctant, some quietly respecting the weight of what was about to happen. Maria lingered

for a second before muttering, "Don't die, dumbass," and disappearing down the tunnel with the others.

Now it was just the three of them.

Caim. Flare. Marcos.

The arena lights dimmed slightly, holo-settings shifting to match full gravity. No assists. No dampening field.

This would hurt.

Caim tightened the wraps around his wrists, already half-frayed from the tournament. His jaw clenched. "I'm ready."

"No, you're not," Flare said evenly. "But that's the point."

Marcos approached first. "Three stages. Each one gets worse."

"I want worse."

"You'll get it." Marcos jabbed a thumb at Flare. "He's first."

Caim turned to face Flare. They circled each other, slower than before. This wasn't sport. This was war in miniature.

Flare didn't warn him. He just moved.

The first blow struck Caim's guard with a concussive crack. A sharp jab to the forearm that numbed his left hand immediately. The

second was a sweep, faster than Caim expected, and it sent him tumbling.

He rolled. Recovered. Stood.

"Again," Caim spat.

Flare obliged.

It was a lesson without language. Pain that spoke fluently in joint pressure and snapped breath. Flare didn't hold back—he darted

in with combinations that tested timing and instinct, not just endurance.

Caim bled. A split lip. A bruised rib. But every

time he got knocked down, he rose again.

Flare didn't praise him. Didn't insult him either. He simply gave him what he asked for.

By the fourth takedown, Caim was coughing blood into his palm.

"Still want more?" Flare asked, voice like iron

scraping stone.

"Yes," Caim growled, planting one foot and surging forward, surprising even Flare with a shoulder check that landed solid. "More."

Flare staggered a step, nodded once.

"Then earn it."

The next round blurred. Grapples. Counters. The scream of strained tendons. Caim landed some hits—sharp, desperate ones—but his body was flagging.

Still, he didn't fall.

He broke stance once, legs buckling from a leg kick that felt like it cracked bone, but he kept his fists up.

Finally, Flare stepped back.

"Enough. Switch."

Caim stumbled, eyes dazed, vision narrowing at the edges. Marcos stepped into the ring, cracking his neck.

"Now comes the real test," he said.

Caim didn't reply. Couldn't. But he lifted his

guard.

Marcos's approach was different—slower. Calculated. Where Flare was speed and precision, Marcos was inevitability.

He struck like gravity.

The first punch connected with Caim's stomach and lifted him off his feet.

He hit the ground with a wet grunt.

"Up."

Caim crawled to his knees. Stood again.

Marcos didn't wait. The next punch was a hook across the jaw that made Caim's teeth click.

He spat blood and steadied himself.

Again. Again. Again.

There was no kindness in Marcos now. No captain. No father figure. Just force, shaping a boy into something harder.

"You want to protect people?" Marcos barked as Caim reeled from another gut shot. "Then stop flinching."

Caim roared and charged, swinging wildly—and got clotheslined into the floor.

He hit with a thud that would've made anyone else stay down.

He didn't.

Again.

When he finally dropped and didn't rise, Flare moved in—but Marcos held up a hand.

"No. He needs to do it."

Caim's hand twitched.

Then planted.

Then pushed.

His body trembled. Muscles screamed.

But he got to his feet.

Blackened eyes. Split brow. Limping leg.

But he was up.

"I said… I'm not done," Caim rasped.

Marcos studied him. Then… stepped back.

"Good."

He turned to Flare. "Let's end it together."

Caim's eyes widened.

Flare stepped forward again. "Last round. No holding back."

Caim grinned through the blood.

"Bring it."

What followed was a storm. The two senior Slayers moved in perfect sync—Flare forcing Caim's upper body to react while Marcos

broke his stance below.

Caim defended, countered, failed, learned.

And through it all—he never stopped trying.

He was broken down and built up in the same breath.

And when he collapsed for the final time, sweat pooling beneath his shuddering frame, neither of them tried to help him up.

Flare just crouched beside him.

"You didn't quit."

"Didn't plan to," Caim whispered, chest heaving.

Marcos nodded. "Then you passed."

Caim's lips twitched upward. "Barely."

"That's all it takes," Flare said. "Just enough not to die."

They left him lying there, the lights slowly dimming, while Caim's fingers curled into the cracked floor.

Smiling.

———————————

The sterile hum of the med-bay was a stark contrast to the raw sweat and adrenaline still clinging to Caim's skin.

He sat on the edge of a reinforced examination bed, hoodie stripped off and folded beside him, his chest rising in ragged intervals. Purple and red bruises bloomed across his ribs like a painter had been drunk with a sledgehammer for a brush. A fine tremor rippled down his arm as he tried to steady his breathing.

Maria didn't speak at first.

She simply ran the scanner in slow, even passes across his torso. Her expression unreadable behind the glowing diagnostic interface.

Caim winced as the cool edge of the scanner touched a rib too high to be broken and too low to ignore. "Sorry," he muttered, voice thin. "Didn't mean to be a pain in your day."

Maria didn't answer. She placed the scanner down gently, then walked over to the cabinet, pulling out a vial and a sterile injector.

Only after prepping the dose did she speak.

"You bruised your liver. Two fractured ribs. Torn muscle in your shoulder. And your adrenal glands are in overdrive." She turned back, her tone steady but colder than usual. "You're lucky your body's as resilient as it is, or you'd be on a gurney and sedated."

Caim looked down. "I asked for it."

"That doesn't make it less reckless." The injector hissed as she pressed it into his side. Relief bloomed immediately, a chemical warmth flowing through his core. "You could've been paralyzed from that last throw Flare pulled."

"But I wasn't."

"You don't know how to quit, do you?"

Caim looked up, meeting her eyes. "I don't know how to stop being weaker than the people I love."

That made her pause.

For a moment, the only sound was the monitor ticking through his vitals and the slow hiss of a dehumidifier cycling in the corner.

Then Maria sighed. "You're not weak, Caim. You're… young. Still learning. There's a difference."

"I froze in the field."

"You adapted in the field. And you came back asking to be better. That's what matters."

He hesitated. "Did I… earn any of it today?"

Maria glanced back at the scanner results, then at the mottled bruises across his torso.

She picked up a dermal regenerator and activated it with a soft chime.

"You earned the right to keep learning," she said softly. "And if you keep pushing like this, one day you'll be someone others have to keep up with."

He smiled faintly, wincing again as the regenerator stitched tissue beneath the skin.

Maria continued her work, gentler now. "Don't make me regret patching you up."

"No promises," he muttered with a crooked grin.

Exterior Balcony Overlook – Dusk

Later, after the painkillers numbed most of the ache and Maria had given him a strict hour of rest, Caim found himself on the northern overlook—one of the highest points on the compound.

The sky was sliding into lavender, clouds edged in gold and bleeding light into the horizon.

A door creaked open behind him.

Marcos stepped out, still wrapped in the sweat-stained shirt he'd never changed after the final match with Flare. His knuckles were taped again, fingers flexing like they still remembered the weight of the day's blows.

Caim didn't turn.

"I thought you'd be in your office. Or passed out."

"I was," Marcos said. "Then Flare told me where you wandered off to."

Caim let out a breath and leaned against the railing. "Didn't mean to worry anyone."

"You didn't." Marcos stepped beside him. "Flare did."

That drew a small snort. "Figures."

They stood in silence for a moment, watching the wind carry specks of dust off the far buildings, the lights of the outer perimeter flicking on one by one.

Then Caim spoke, voice quiet. "Was it enough?"

Marcos looked at him.

"That session. The pain. The fire. The way you and Flare didn't pull your punches." He looked down at his healing knuckles. "Was it enough to make me stronger?"

"No," Marcos said plainly.

Caim blinked.

"But it was enough," the captain continued, "to make you start. Start to understand what real fear does. What your body needs to remember even when your mind blanks. Today wasn't about strength. It was about nerve."

Caim nodded slowly. "Then I want more."

"I know."

"I don't want to be coddled because I'm your son."

Marcos didn't flinch. "And you won't be. That's why we hurt you today. Because out there? The Ashen don't care that you're my boy. And if you hesitate again, they won't give you a second chance."

"I won't."

"You will," Marcos corrected. "We all do. The goal isn't to never hesitate. It's to recognize when you do… and move anyway."

Caim was silent for a beat.

Then, finally, he asked, "Were you proud?"

Marcos turned to him.

"I was always proud," he said. "But today, I was impressed."

That hit deeper than praise ever could.

Caim swallowed once, nodding, eyes glinting in the fading light. "Thanks, Dad."

Marcos gave his shoulder a light, carefully aimed punch. "Now go sleep before your body realizes what we put it through."

Caim chuckled, already limping toward

the stairs.