It was the day before the group would set out into the wastelands, and Cole had spent the entire night replaying the fight between Veyra and Cassian, second by second, in his mind. He'd slowed down his memory recordings, analyzed every pivot, every feint, every adaptation. But his single vantage point from the private box only told part of the story. He was missing angles, missing the moments when bodies blocked his view, missing whatever had happened on Cassian's face when Veyra cracked his system.

  Still, the fight had become a puzzle floating in his vision, each movement tagged with his best guesses at probability percentages and tactical annotations. He saw it now, or at least the shape of it. The fluid defiance within the rigid cage; the path to victory that was about understanding the rules so perfectly that you could turn them into a weapon.

  Around 10:00, he got a message from Iris: "Meet me at The Axiom. Don't be late."

  He walked up to the place. It wasn't a grimy workshop like Michael's; it was a pristine, white-walled boutique. The storefront was a single piece of smart-glass that displayed a live feed of customer's neural patterns converted into code in real-time. Cole watched his own anxiety manifest as a particularly volatile differential algorithm.

  The inside was a temple to pure data. There were only floating, interactive holographic theorems and elegant, scrolling numeric sequences projected onto the walls. The air was cool and carried the unexpected scent of vanilla, the specialized cooling fluid they used in quantum processors had that distinctive sweet smell when it cycled through the systems.

  Iris was waiting for him, looking at home. "Based on our past few days of training, I have compiled a list of software upgrades targeting key areas where you're still lacking." She gestured to a private data-transfer terminal. "I've also included something special: combat recordings from my arena days. Specifically, my fights against other Lucent Domains. Consider it... a gift."

  Cole's eyebrows shot up. "Iris, these must be worth..."

  "67,000 credits at current market value," she said flatly. "Professional multi-angle captures with full Domain sensor overlays, frame-by-frame breakdowns, and my personal tactical annotations on every exchange. Not some spectator's blurry memory dump. Their worth to you, specifically, at this moment, is incalculable. Don't make me regret this by learning that Lucius and Senna died."

  Cole began downloading each of the data files. The transfer felt like hot sand pouring through his skull, each grain a new piece of information that scraped against his existing knowledge. It was a deluge of tactical information formatted for direct neural absorption. There were a myriad of various math equations, complex vectors for multi-dimensional combat and one file was titled "Euclidean Geometry for Dummies: A Practical Guide to Not Dying in Paradoxical Space."

  "It has the highest probability of successful data retention for a user with your learning profile," Iris replied without a hint of irony. "Your brain processes information through narrative and humor more efficiently than pure logic. The 'For Dummies' format exploits this tendency. It's actually quite clever, though I'd never admit that to its author."

  Another file caught his eye: "Pattern Recognition in Chaos: The Veyra Method." He looked at Iris in surprise.

  "I may have paid her for a consultation," Iris admitted, a faint pink tinge appearing on her cheeks, the closest thing to a blush she could produce. "She was... expensive. But insightful. She said to tell you, 'Stop trying to break the cage. Learn the bars, then walk between them.'"

  "That's... actually profound," Cole said.

  "It's statistically unsound advice," Iris corrected. "But somehow effective."

  The two headed out to the arena. Lia, Lucius and Senna had decided to watch this final round from the stands, their figures small but distinct in the vast, empty stadium.

  The sand was still warm, emanating the residual heat from the prior night's Battle Royale. Above them, maintenance crews were already setting up for tonight's event by installing new shield generators, testing the holographic projectors that would display fighter stats, and making sure the automated medical systems were fully stocked with synthetic blood and trauma nanites.

  "You ready?" Iris said, already stepping into the center of the arena and drawing her sword from her back. The sword's mathematical patterns were different today, more complex, as if she'd upgraded its algorithms overnight.

  "Let's do this." Cole pulled his Fractal Blades, their edges hungry with anticipation. The blades felt different in his hands, as the new software was already interfacing with his systems, showing him angles of attack he'd never considered.

  The golden grid snapped into existence around them, the familiar shimmer settling over the arena. But something was different. The grid flickered occasionally and showed glimpses of non-Euclidean geometry. This time, Cole didn't feel the same sense of dread.

  He felt… prepared.

  "I've modified the parameters," Senna announced. "The grid will randomly shift between standard and non-Euclidean space. Consider this your final exam. Now let’s begin."

  Cole waited. The upgraded systems created a predictive overlay in his vision, showing ghost images of Iris and her most likely moves, each one tagged with a percentage. He saw the grid as a chessboard.

  And then he saw what Veyra had seen, and something more. The grid pulsed with Iris's heartbeat, strengthened with her confidence, weakened with her doubts. Mathematics performed by a human. And humans, even Pattern Domains, were beautifully flawed.

  He moved first, a ninety-degree pivot to the left, a tactic he'd learned from watching Veyra. Iris's math-core instantly predicted the move, her body shifting to intercept. Cole was already pivoting again, chaining three more right-angle turns in rapid succession, each one bleeding into the next.

  He was obeying her rules so precisely that her predictive model kept stuttering, expecting him to break pattern, waiting for the chaos that never came.

  On the fourth pivot, Cole threw his first Fractal Blade straight up, where it embedded in one of the arena's support beams. Then he activated his leg matrix, photons erupting from the crystalline lattice in his calves, shaping themselves into a mirror surface at exactly 45 degrees to her blade arc. He vanished into the reflection and burst out behind her.

  This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.

  Iris was already turning, her sword sweeping back to meet him. She'd calculated the angle, predicted his exit point. Her blade would reach him before he could complete his strike.

  But Cole had already started his second throw mid-emergence, his remaining Fractal Blade spinning toward the ground at her feet. It hit the sand and immediately activated its recording function, capturing the exact pattern of Iris's pivot. The blade in the ceiling began resonating at the same frequency.

  "Attempting something?" Iris asked, deflecting his punch with her forearm while bringing her sword around.

  Cole shattered before her blade reached him, flowing up through the ceiling blade's reflection. He reformed crouched on the support beam, then immediately dove back down, using gravity to accelerate his attack.

  Iris sidestepped, her sword coming up to bisect him mid-fall. But Cole shattered again mid-air, the fragments flowing into the blade at her feet. As he emerged from it rising upward, he manifested a hard-light sword in his empty hand.

  The hard-light blade met Iris's greatsword. The constructs' energy field actually held against her Pattern-enhanced edge for a full second before starting to fracture.

  She leaned back, pivoting to bring her knee up toward his ribs, but Cole let the hard-light sword shatter deliberately. The explosion of photons created a blinding flash that made her strike go wide. He rolled with her glancing blow, using the momentum to grab his grounded blade and flip backward.

  "Creative," Iris noted, "but not enough—"

  The blade embedded in the ground pulsed. Five echo Coles materialized from its surface, each one executing her own pivoting pattern. Three echoes moved to flank positions, creating a triangle formation. The other two came straight at her.

  Iris's blade swept through the two frontal echoes, dispersing them instantly. She pivoted to face the flanking three. Her sword came around in an arc, catching two more.

  But the fifth echo had been programmed differently. Instead of attacking, it had grabbed the blade still embedded in the ceiling and pulled it free. The echo tossed the blade down just as it dispersed.

  Cole caught the falling blade and used its momentum to execute a ninety-degree rotation.

  Iris had to use both hands on her sword to block, the impact actually driving her back a step. The force of the block left her stance broken for just an instant.

  Cole's foot swept her ankle. She went down on one knee, and his blade touched her shoulder.

  First point to Cole.

  Iris stumbled back to her feet, her Pattern tattoos flared as she recalculated, several equations displaying error messages before being forcibly resolved. "Impressive. You used my own movement theorem against me. That required seven separate calculations executed simultaneously. Adaptability index increased by 8%."

  "I had a good teacher," Cole said. "Even if she did beat me into the sand for multiple days in a row."

  "Physical trauma enhances memory formation," Iris replied. "Now how about something more difficult to counter?"

  The fight had truly begun.

  Cole pressed his advantage. He threw one Fractal Blade at a specific grid intersection, planning to create a network.

  Iris adapted, her theorems growing more complex. "Momentum is halved upon quadrant entry. Kinetic energy conserved but redistributed randomly."

  The effect was nauseating. Cole leaped forward only to find himself moving in slow motion while his sword arm accelerated beyond control. But he'd anticipated this. He let his remaining blade fly from his grip deliberately, using the acceleration to send it into another grid intersection. Two blades now embedded at key points.

  She pressed him back, her attacks relentless. Each swing left golden equations hanging in the air, mathematical proofs of why he was about to lose. Cole created a hard-light decoy, but made it deliberately obvious with a 0.3% energy signature difference.

  She dismissed it instantly.

  But while she dismissed the obvious decoy, she missed the second one he'd created—this one matching his signature perfectly because he'd split a fragment of his actual consciousness into it. The fragment was unstable, painful to maintain, but it fooled her sensors for exactly 1.2 seconds.

  Cole emerged from one of his embedded blades and swept Iris's legs. But she saw it coming. Her free hand planted in the sand, turning the fall into a cartwheel. Her sword came around in the same motion, forcing Cole to dive backward. Sand exploded where he'd been standing.

  "Predictable," Iris said, already back on her feet. "You're telegraphing through the blade resonance frequency."

  Cole manifested hard-light shields to block three rapid strikes, each one shattering on impact, driving him further back. Arms burning from repeatedly recreating constructs against her strikes, Cole saw his real opening.

  Iris's grid was energy. Structured, yes, but still energy. And his blades could turn any surface into a mirror gate.

  "Hey Iris," Cole said, grinning. "Want to see something interesting?"

  He snapped his fingers. Both embedded blades pulsed, still locked in their grid intersections where he'd placed them earlier. They'd been recording her patterns this whole time, but now he switched their function.

  The grid shuddered.

  "What are you—" Iris started.

  "Your grid defines how I can move," Cole said. "It doesn't say anything about what counts as a reflection."

  The blades' recording function shifted, no longer copying attacks but recording the grid itself. Every intersection point became a potential mirror to navigate it like she did.

  Cole shattered.

  His body exploded into glass shards, consciousness fragmenting across the grid. He flowed along the grid lines themselves, using her own highways. He was existing in her mathematical space, riding it.

  Iris's tattoos cascaded error messages, equations colliding into paradoxes. "You're not breaking my rules. You're... you're following them better than I am."

  She swung in a defensive arc, trying to track him, but Cole was everywhere and nowhere, existing as probability within certainty.

  He reconstituted behind her, a hard light blade arcing toward her spine. Iris’s sword swept back to deflect his strike with the flat of her blade.

  She spun, her sword coming around. Cole shattered again, flowing to another intersection. This time he appeared to her left, thrusting toward her ribs. Her free hand came down, the pommel of her sword blocking his blade inches from her side.

  "You're using my own grid as a transportation network," Iris said, her sword already moving to where he'd appear next. "The processing power required to maintain consciousness while—"

  Cole reformed in front of her, two hard light blades converging on her throat. But she'd been baiting him. Her blade was already there, the edge resting against his neck even as his blades stopped a centimeter from her throat.

  They froze.

  Cole's blades hovered at her throat, vibrating at a frequency that would have disrupted her neural implants on contact.

  Iris's sword rested just as close to his neck, already drawing a thin line of blood.

  Absolute stalemate.

  The golden grid dissolved. Mirror gates shattered. Cole's vision went white. He felt his consciousness snap back into one body like a rubber band breaking. Blood poured from his nose as his augmentations screamed failure warnings. He dropped to his knees, his Fractal Blades clattering to the sand as his hands went numb.

  "Combat efficiency revised to 67%. You passed," Iris said quietly. She was leaning on her sword, and for the first time, Cole noticed she was breathing hard. "Barely. But you passed."

  But I’m also Gertrude Monkey.

  And sometimes Elle Erikson—when the timing is right.

  Or Usagi, when I’m literally wearing a mask.

  Alexandra May.

  Maybe because I spent half my life stealing things powerful people really didn’t want stolen.

  Scratch that.

  Go figure.

  I was supposed to invite you to hear my story, but I got sidetracked.