“Training room: dummy, armoured.” Ajax called out, his voice clear and authoritative, even bouncing off the room’s metallic walls to add more to the ambiance of Ajax’s strangely calm emotions.

After Aaliyah had said her piece, and the night of solid sleep that had come after it, Ajax had felt the dust settle within him to a relative peace. He had known a little about Aaliyah, just from how she’d acted, and how she’d contrasted with Mirah, but he hadn’t expected her past to be as… involved as it was.

The Monarch was a name they all knew, even Mirah had more than likely heard it. They all knew that him and his gang had ruled the street trade, and just how obscenely dangerous they could be when provoked. If what Aaliyah had said was true, then the feats he’d pulled of were beyond impressive, even with as heinous as they were.

Because he wasn’t a Linked. He had no info link, or any link that controlled thoughts and perceptions, not like the media and those brave enough to speculate on the on the Monarch had suspected.

Aaliyah, too, hadn’t had a link when she’d been the Monarch. The idea was almost harrowing to Ajax, thinking of a young Aaliyah as she took her father’s position and braved that world unflinchingly, without even the protection of her rage to cloak her skin in red.

Ajax closed his eyes against the vision of himself, standing within the bunker from so long ago, holding his red axe with a desperate plea to any who might listen—to allow him to stop those three monsters as the ground tremored and crumbled, becoming dust before his eyes. Then the terrible faces, weathered and worn by the sun and heat of the Australian outback, wearing grins like skulls of insanity as they burned the world to ash to please their horrible minds.

Ajax opened his eyes to see the armoured concrete dummy in front of him, covered in a layer of linktech metal that Ajax peered into with a neutral gaze, seeing a slight reflection of himself in it’s far from polished surface, distorted into only a vague semblance of coloured shapes.

The red of his axe, however, reflexed brightly enough for him to see its defined shape.

This axe, it was a reminder and an answer to the plea that he’d made so desperately. The answer hadn’t come in time, not for his grandparents, or for those that he’d lived with for years of his life. They were all gone, the town as abandoned as any other that’d been touched by the Wastelanders. It was their territory now.

That was the difference between Aaliyah and him. She’d faced her evil head on, baring her teeth and taking a chunk out of its flesh bite after bite. But Ajax had run, even with the power he’d gained. He’d stolen away into the night, hiding amongst the trees of a forest created by a Linked who’d long since passed. He’d used his power for mediocre things, mundane things, and his axe had been unsatisfied.

Of course it had been. It had sat on that wall for decades, probably, waiting for someone to pick it up and use it for its intended purpose. To protect others, to be utilised with a clear intention of defending against whatever dangers it could defend against.

Then Ajax had picked it up, and it had sung, but only a moment too late.

He’d left it all behind, tricking himself into thinking that he was content to waste his days among the trees he’d wandered for countless days. Interacting with others only occasionally, when he could no longer resist the urge to talk to someone, if only a few words.

And then Tracker had found him within the woods, fittingly. She’d offered him a chance, a team of Undefined Linked. He’d known his link was undefined, it was too volatile and odd to be anything but.

But now he stood in front of this armoured dummy, his mind clear and calm, and he wasn’t so sure that he felt that way any longer. Undefined? Maybe, with its indeterminant power and uncontrollable flux. But if Ajax let the calm change, ever so slightly…

Power.

Ajax’s body felt like it was being shocked with lighting, the burst of astounding power coursing through his muscles like wildfire. Yet, he stayed just as calm as ever. If you asked Ajax what had changed, he might not be able to give you a genuine answer, only because he wouldn’t be able to put it into words.

He’d overcome no emotional hurdles. He hadn’t railed against an unbeatable foe. None of his sudden advancement made any sense in the context of the comic book power-ups that he’d read in those that Walter had recommended him.

Except one series. Reyah: The Silver Goddess. It was one of the biggest, yet its greatest criticisms were that it had no stakes because the titular character was so overwhelmingly powerful, simply ‘finding’ the power within herself whenever she encountered a problem.

Yet, was that not what Ajax had just done?

Aaliyah had simply told the story of her revenge, of the horrible moments that preceded the deaths she’d caused, had orchestrated. But in that story, Ajax had placed it up against his own, and he found himself severely lacking. He’d given up, and he’d only come back half-heartedly, believing that it would be enough, and if worst came to worst, he’d simply find himself back in that forest.

Then Walter, then Mirah, then Aaliyah. Then Heroes and corruption, and a world left to rot as it defiantly allowed itself to die, rejecting any extended hands to sit in the black sludge that gently pulled it deeper into the depths of despair.

All that had happened, was that Ajax had realised that the Wastelanders were winning. Entropy had come to subsume them all, forcing the world to resign itself to ‘fate’, and all the while, those who say atop it all grinned with all their evil, enjoying watching it all end around them.

Ajax looked down at his red axe, the might flowing from it in a massive surge as it sang with glee, begging him to continue, to fulfil the purpose that it had Awakened from its dull slumber for. Now, Ajax could hear its voice as it reinforced his ideas, adding to the chorus of power diffusing through him.

He returned his gaze to the reinforced dummy just in front of him and stared at it with a powerful gaze, far surer than he’d ever been in his entire life. It had taken years for him to come to his understanding, and many little moments of acknowledgement, but he now knew with a fierce conviction…

He would protect, and he’d spend his life doing it.

Ajax took a step towards the dummy, then another, punctuating his thoughts with the massive strides. He used everything that his body could give him in that moment, taking his axe and holding it tight, moving his tall body and powerful muscles with a fluid ease that he’d practiced over days and days of fighting.

And he swung.

The edge of the axe screamed through the air with a roaring power, pushing against the air strongly enough that it made it burst outwards from the edge, battering it away as if he’d truly sliced it. The edge soon came into contact with the armoured dummy, and while it gave the axe’s head a momentary pause, the axe cleaved through, grinding the concrete within into an explosion of dust and shrapnel as it easily sliced the entire dummy in half and exiting from where its other side once was.

Ajax stood still for a moment, staying in the end of his swing for another few seconds as he let the dust and rubble settle around him, then turning to see the thoroughly destroyed dummy, pieces of its warped metal and obliterated concrete littering the room. Yet, what was most impressive was not just that, but the massive gash in the wall that sat behind it.

Ajax looked at the gash with a thoughtful gaze. Its only real explanation was that the edge of the axe itself had projected itself forwards, ripping through the metal wall just as it had the dummy. He nodded, having found an answer to satisfy him, and turned his mind to something else entirely.

“Training room: finish training.” He said as he turned his back from the ripped metal and watching the wall lift and allow him to duck under it and leave the training room, and the private gym beyond it.

Lunch break was over, it was time for more fighting.

---

Ren stood in the smaller arena, arms crossed in consternation as he watched the others from both his team, and their training partners file in after the lunch break. The trainers had been here what seemed like the entire time, silently observing for the most part as per usual.

What had Ren in such a tizzy wasn’t anything to do with the trainers, of course. It was the little rift in his own team that had formed, a rare conflict between Julia and Jamie. Not only that, however, but also because Ren was struggling.

He watched idly as the tall form of his own training partner walked through the door. Well, not quite idly, not with the slight tenseness he felt in his own jaw as his body instinctively ramped up for a fight. It wasn’t so much anxiety as it was a learned focus. Ren had fought against the other man for hours at this point, and he wasn’t foolish enough to believe that he’d sit atop the other man for very long.

The massive man, who was now aligning himself across from Ren, had slowly been encroaching on Ren’s dominance. He’d been totally unable to compete at the beginning, but Ren had been the first to fall when Ajax had gotten serious. Now Ren kept his lead over the man, probably winning six to seven matches out of every ten.

“Are we ready?” Ren said softly as he eyed the other man, having long since been able to control when they started and ended their own battles. The titan of a man looked down at the much shorter man and nodded solemnly. Ren felt his throat gulp as his mind suddenly comprehended the other man’s massive size in comparison to his own.

Unbidden, sweat reached the surface of his skin as he locked eyes with the other man’s mundane brown eyes, though Ren could almost swear that they had changed tone ever so slightly, becoming a lighter shade than they had been before.

As was custom, they bumped fists and moved a few metres out from each other, with Ajax pulling his red fire axe from the Velcro holster at his side and Ren growing out his hair to a length that allowed it to rest on the floor. They stood across from one another for a tense moment, and then, with an unspoken signal…

The fight began.

It was Ren that moved first, his hair lifting to surround him in somewhat of a halo, then quickly lashing out towards Ajax, almost acting as if they could pierce through Ajax’s skin. Of course, they couldn’t and instead they were just taking the most direct paths to their targets.

Ajax, with his axe in hand, stood entirely still and allowed his body to be entirely covered by the long strands of what Ren lovingly called ‘plant fibres’ which always prompted a chuckle from Ajax. But today, as he was quickly covered by the grass hair and wrapped in a tight bondage, he wasn’t interested in the mutual training approach that they’d been taking.

No, he wanted a true challenge, and he needed to show that he was serious for the other man to up his game, to fight like they were truly fighting. He watched as his axe arm was covered most heavily, and Ren watched on in a focused persistence.

It was Ajax’s greatest weakness, needing the use of his arm to swing his axe. Disabling that, of course, disabled much of his power overall. Ren wasn’t quite ready to call it a match, even if he logically believed that there wasn’t much that the other man could even do…

But that look that Ajax had given him still remained in his mind, forcing his hand into wrapping Ajax’s arm with yet another layer of hair, doubling down with that small irrational fear in his heart. The other man kept his gaze down at the arm that had been wrapped in green hair, befuddlingly unconcerned to Ren. By any logical account, Ren had the man checkmated, and he had just let it happen.

Ren watched the man’s face anxiously as he looked at his bound arm unconcernedly. Then Ajax raised his eyes to Ren, staring into his eyes with a gaze like stone.

“I’m sorry, Ren. It’s time to up the ante.” And with that simple sentence, he pulled.

It was no simple pull either, it was the equivalent of tearing a phonebook with your bare hands, no tricks or cheats. When phonebooks still existed, at least. Ren watched on in horror as the man pulled straight through the massive amount of strands, then even mortification as he felt Ajax grab onto the torn grass hairs and pulling, forcing the Japanese born man through the air and skittering across the ground towards where Ajax stood.

Ren tried to cut the hairs before he was pulled the whole way, but when he felt Ajax’s hand grab the roots of the hair, right up against his scalp, he knew it was all over. Ajax lifted the other man up with one arm, staring almost dispassionately at him as his face rose to be equal with his own, holding the man almost a foot off the ground.

“I’ve crushed you, Ren.” He said powerfully, only centimetres away from the man’s face, letting his voice reverberate through his body like a drum, “Now you have to match me.”

Ajax turned, letting his eyes scan over the room’s other occupants, all of them watching them as they had started long before the others. Ajax Nephus’ eyes met with one other person’s, holding it iron clad and giving it an intense smile.

“Aaliyah,” he said to his teammate, eyes blazingly powerful, “now it’s your turn.”