The Rene Hall was far from empty… The more cadets broke through the first bottleneck, the more of them trickled in here. Those only managing the breakthrough now were, more often than not, the kind of losers who wouldn't make it to Second Period — but they weren't giving up. Life had a funny way of turning things around, and Rene didn't charge much, so lately the hall had started to feel like an anthill.

I arrived later than I'd planned and could already hear the rhythm from the corridor: impacts, commands, sharp exhales, the squeak of shoes across the floor from sudden movement.

And this time, I got neither space nor Rene's attention. The trainer simply nudged a few cadets aside and cleared a thin strip for me right along the wall — not exactly the kind of space you could move freely in. Especially not with a movement technique as chaotic as Mad Monkey.

I knew right away that aside from the single jump from the third step, I wouldn't be practising much else. And no work with the Hook today either. Maybe just the Chain Punch...

I decided to start with that. Do something I was good at, just to build confidence, then move on to the Monkey. After yesterday's injury, a bit of confidence wouldn't hurt.

My body resisted. For some reason, my ligaments acted like they'd forgotten what flexibility was even for. I ran through a few standard warm-ups for both arms and legs, twisted through the torso, and put together a series of decent projections.

Good enough.

Next — Mad Monkey.

I did two standing jumps, then opened the interface and pulled up that same holographic map with the chopped-up figures. My legs lit up green, while the next movement prompts showed up in blue.

Step-step-jump.

Starting off with the right foot was slightly harder, but I nailed it on the first try — then, unexpectedly, managed to repeat the sequence several times in a row.

And there was no Rene beside me to say "Good."

Although he had said it a few times to my neighbour, who was practising his striking technique.

"Very good, Arnaud!"

Not just "good," but "very good." The guy had only recently started showing up at the hall, and already he was executing the strikes from his first technique with impressive precision.

It was either talent or solid prep. Though I doubted Arnaud came from a well-known family — he showed up here rather late.

I paused for a break and glanced at the cadet. His fist shot forward again — sharp, no wasted motion. A perfectly straight strike.

Arnaud made a short step with his left — stable footing, heel grounded. Right foot shifted slightly back and to the side, forming a support triangle. The strike came from the legs: a smooth rotation of the hip, then the torso. The shoulder surged ahead a quarter second before the arm. The fist started moving vertically, palm sideways, then rotated mid-strike until the palm faced down. No swing. No brute force. Precise. Linear. Through the centre.

A silver projection with a reddish shimmer peeled off at the full extension of his arm, right at the peak of momentum, and shot forward in a straight line — six, maybe seven metres — before thudding dully and dissolving into sparks.

Arnaud didn't stop. He raised his hand again — stance, weight shift, focus — and struck once more. Same result. A straight line, clean trajectory, solid finish.

Jab, I thought. That guy definitely trained in the local version of boxing back on Earth. The technique made sense. He was executing it like a machine.

I turned my attention back to my own lane, nudged the reactor, pushed energy through my shoulder, down the arm, through the fist, and released.

Not just one, of course. A series of Chain Punches tore forward. My projections flew farther than his — a full ten metres or more. But their spread was like buckshot, and they explode with quiet pops compared to his.

Arnaud was working like he'd been cut from a stencil. Stance — strike. Stance — strike. Not as fast as me, but every projection looked the same, every detonation hit dead-centre. He had the consistency I lacked.

One —strike. Two — strike. Three — strike. Identical. You could frame them. The blasts landed like a metronome.

And it wasn't like it came easy to him. The cadet had dark circles under his eyes, sweat pouring down his face, patches spreading under his arms and across his back. He was giving it everything he had.

Maybe I should too.

But just as that thought crossed my mind, Arnaud's movement shifted. It was like he snagged on something invisible, his next projection dipped hard, veering downwards.

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It surprised even him. He blinked, thrown off, and I reconsidered. Maybe going all-out wasn't such a great idea after all — fatigue sneaks up when you least expect it.

Arnaud tried again, but his strikes had lost that crispness. Same movements, but with a... micro-delay. He was hitting, but like he was lagging behind his own body.

It instantly reminded me of my own swollen fists and the way qi detonated just in front of the knuckles — like someone had smacked them with a bat.

I'd just opened my mouth to tell him to take a break when he pitched forward, as if the force of his last punch had pulled him off balance. He stepped, stumbled — his knee buckled, his whole body lurched forward like a drunk's. He tried to catch himself, but the weight shifted wrong, and he collapsed sideways. A dull thump on the floor.

I was on him immediately. A few other cadets noticed too.

"You alright, mate?" I asked.

Arnaud lay on his side, twisted like a rag doll. His face was soaked, pale, hair matted. His eyes were half-open, cloudy, unfocused. His fingers started twitching, like he was trying to grab something from the air.

"Arnaud?" I touched his shoulder.

No response. His breathing was shallow. Fast. His chest rose and fell... then suddenly paused. Long.

I crouched closer.

"Hey," I said louder, giving his shoulder a hard shake. "Can you hear me?"

His arm jerked violently, and he started gasping for breath — short, uneven bursts, like someone suffocating.

"What the hell's wrong with him?" someone asked.

Arnaud convulsed, his entire body snapping tight like he'd been hit with a surge of electricity. His shoulders tensed, stomach clenched, legs drew up, face twisted, lips turning blue.

"TRAINER!" someone shouted.

I didn't know what to do. He didn't look injured. I knew how to give first aid to the wounded — my déjà vu had handed me an entire catalogue of combat related trauma responses and treatments — but this wasn't that. No bleeding. No wounds.

But it didn't seem like plain overexertion anymore either. Some kind of internal failure?

Seizures. Shortness of breath. Cyanosis. I stepped back instinctively. Maybe someone else knew what to do. No point crowding the space.

Chaos broke out. Someone ran for the door. Another called the infirmary through their interface. One cadet tried slapping Arnaud's face to bring him round, another poured water over him.

Arnaud was clearly unconscious. His body began convulsing. Foam bubbled from his lips. His eyes rolled back.

Then Rene arrived. Fast. Precise. His voice cut through the noise like a blade.

"Back! Everyone clear out — don't get in the way!" he barked, leaving no room for argument.

I heard the whine of jet engines before I realised what it was.

Two medics burst into the hall on low-altitude hoverboards, gliding just above the floor. White coats flared over grey jumpsuits.

The crowd parted at once.

The lead medic, a woman with rank fours on her collar, leapt off the board mid-slide, clearly using some kind of movement technique. One moment she was braking hard with the board tilted upright; the next she was crouched beside Arnaud, scanner in hand.

The second medic — a man with a heavy pack on his back — ran up without using any technique at all.

"Lip cyanosis, loss of tone, microtremors…" the woman reported calmly, efficiently. Her movements were automatic, rehearsed.

"Respiration unstable," she added.

The male medic dropped the pack and opened it like a cabinet. He pulled out a breathing mask and passed it to her. She fitted it to Arnaud's face without hesitation.

Next came a contactless injector. He loaded an ampoule into it and handed it over. She pressed it to Arnaud's neck and triggered the dose. Ampoule out. He handed her another. This one she discharged into Arnaud's chest after unzipping his jumpsuit.

Then the scanner was back in action.

The pair moved like they'd rehearsed this exact sequence a thousand times.

After the second injection, Arnaud's face seemed to smooth out slightly. Or maybe it was the first one finally kicking in. His lips were still blue, but his breathing started to steady. Not even — no, not yet. But there was a rhythm now. One, two, pause. One, two. His shoulders began to relax.

His hands stopped twitching. His eyes were still rolled back, but his eyelids fluttered — once, then again. Then his face twisted in discomfort, like he was waking up at a really bad moment.

"Stabilising," the medic said with a short nod. "We're moving him."

She made a quick gesture, and her board slid up beside her. She leaned toward the edge, tapped a side panel, and the configuration shifted before our eyes — supports extended underneath, the surface widened and levelled out. A rim formed around it — like a stretcher.

"On the board. Careful. Head toward the front," she ordered, without even glancing at us.

Not a single cadet moved. No one dared. Only Rene stepped in — calmly, without hesitation. He bent down, lifted Arnaud like he weighed nothing, and laid him on the board. Checked the head brace. Gave a nod.

"All right. He's yours."

The male medic was already on his own board. He began moving slowly, not too low — just enough to let the stretcher follow him at a stable height. The jet thrust was minimal — barely a whisper. But the stretcher glided after him in perfect sync, like it was tethered by an invisible thread.

And then the medic woman launched again, using that same movement technique. She shot ahead of the stretcher — before it had even cleared the training hall.

Within seconds, everything was quiet. Only a faint trace of ozone lingered in the air — left behind by the hoverboards.

No one said a word until Rene did. And he was furious.

"You all saw that," he said. His voice didn't boom, but it struck like a hammer — every word branding itself into your ears.

He paused, scanning the room.

"That cadet was good! His technique landed like it came out of a textbook. Perfect trajectory, perfect control, perfect rhythm. Too perfect, for someone that new. I watched him. I praised him. You all watched too. Maybe someone even got jealous."

He sighed—short, hard.

"Well don't! He's not coming back to this hall. I don't want that kind of cadet here.

"That was some illegal crap that gave him a boost — speed, precision, reaction time. And then broke him."

He pointed to the spot where the stretcher had just been.

"If anyone else is using something like that…" His gaze flicked to me for a moment, then moved on. "It's not too late to quit. You think you're in control. That you'll know when to stop. That you'll be better, stronger, faster thanks to something external. But you don't know what you're dealing with. And neither do the people selling it to you."

Rene went quiet for a few seconds, then finished in a calm but iron tone:

"Arnaud might not come back. Not just to this hall — he might be done with training for good. Watch. Remember. That's the price of stupidity."

He took a step back.

"If you can't focus, leave. If you stay — work." He clapped his hands once. "Back to it!"

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