The conflict in the gym had started with a clear trajectory. Initially, Aron had been locked in a fierce exchange with another member of the Black Hands, a veteran fighter named Skull. As the two of them traded blows amongst the weight racks and treadmills, it was becoming increasingly obvious that Aron held the upper hand. His movements were more refined, his pacing more deliberate; it was only a matter of time before he ended the fight.
That was until Ramon arrived.
Ramon wasn’t like the other Gilt Rat members who wore individual pieces of experimental gear. He was the only person present who possessed a full exoskeleton suit. The rig was a marvel of terrifying engineering: two pressurized sleeves encased his arms, while two reinforced frames supported his legs, extending up to brace his thighs for maximum torque. Topping it off was a central chest piece that acted as the heart of the machine.
The suit granted him extreme levels of speed and strength that dwarfed anything the others had shown. For Aron, it appeared to be a hurdle that was simply too high to clear. In their very first brief encounter, Ramon had lashed out with a mechanically assisted fist; the impact had been so violent that it had snapped one of Aron’s combat batons like a dry twig.
Now, Aron stood in the center of the gym’s open floor, his breathing shallow. Ramon stood directly in front of him, the hydraulics in his suit hissing softly, while Skull had circled around to cut off his retreat from behind.
"Alright, this is going to be hard," Aron mumbled to himself, his fingers tightening around his one remaining baton. He lowered his center of gravity, his eyes darting between his two predators. "But it’s these types of situations I need to get through. I have to prove I’m worthy of protecting him."
He didn’t wait to be sandwiched. In a sudden burst of movement, Aron spun around and charged toward Skull. He swung his single baton in a brutal, overhead arc, putting every ounce of his weight into the strike. Skull reacted quickly, hoisting his forearms to block the incoming metal. He braced himself, gritting his teeth as he waited for the inevitable follow-up strike, but it never came.
Instead of pressing the advantage against Skull, Aron used the momentum of the bounce-back to pivot. He lunged toward Ramon, who was already closing in from behind to strike. It was a maneuver so fluid it seemed as though Aron had predicted the exact timing of the pincer move.
The sudden change in direction startled Ramon. He saw the man abruptly veer toward him, and he tensed his exoskeleton for a collision. However, as Aron got close, he didn’t commit to an attack. Instead, he performed a sharp, lateral slip to the side, almost completely moving out of Ramon’s path of travel.
"What the heck? Is he running away?" Ramon shouted, his voice echoing off the mirrored walls.
He watched as Aron disappeared into the forest of exercise equipment, weaving between the heavy cable machines and squat racks. The frustration began to boil over in Ramon’s chest. He reached down and snatched a heavy dumbbell from the floor, his suit’s arm whirring as it compensated for the weight.
"You think you can just run away from me!" Ramon roared. He hurled the dumbbell with the force of a cannonball. The iron weight whistled through the air, but Aron had already shifted. The dumbbell slammed into a large leg-press machine, bending the heavy steel frame with a sickening crunch and missing its target entirely.
For a moment, silence fell over the gym. Ramon and Skull moved cautiously through the aisles of equipment, their eyes scanning for any sign of movement. They were hunting a ghost in a maze of iron.
Suddenly, Aron emerged from the shadows behind Skull.
Skull sensed the presence at the very last second, spinning around to catch the baton strike on his guard. But Aron was already transitioning. He dropped low and delivered a powerful sweep, his leg connecting hard with Skull’s shins. The force caused Skull to lose his footing, tumbling backward and hitting the floor with a heavy thud.
Skull was in a completely vulnerable position, splayed out on his back. Aron didn’t hesitate; he gripped the baton and thrust the end of it downward, aiming directly for Skull’s throat to end the threat once and for all.
But from the periphery, another dumbbell came screaming through the air. At the last possible moment, Aron was forced to pivot. He brought his baton up to block the projectile, but the sheer kinetic energy of Ramon’s throw was too much. The iron weight smashed into the baton, shattering the second weapon and sending the fragments flying.
The impact knocked Aron off his feet and away from Skull. However, by the time Skull scrambled back up and Ramon closed the distance, Aron was gone again. He had melted back into the shadows of the gym equipment, his footsteps silent on the rubber matting.
"Ramon, I think you should leave him to me," Skull said, rubbing his bruised legs and looking around nervously.
"What? So you can just lose against him again?" Ramon spat, his suit’s chest piece glowing as it cycled energy. "This guy clearly has some type of special training."
"You’re right, but he’s changed his fighting style completely," Skull argued, his eyes fixed on a row of treadmills. "If I’m right, he’s decided that the best thing to do isn’t to win—it’s to buy time."
Skull gestured toward the door leading to the arena. "I know you have confidence in Darius, but there is a chance that there might be someone else out there just as skilled as him. Aron is buying time to give his leader the best chance to finish his fight. Whoever beats Darius will then come here to help him, and then we’ll be in a two-on-two fight we might not win."
Skull looked at the shattered remains of Aron’s weapons on the floor. "That dumbbell you threw... I saw it damage his last baton. He has no weapons on him now, and I’m sure he’s injured from that last impact. I can finish this. You should go to where Darius is."
Ramon hesitated, his mechanical eyes whirring as he processed the logic. He wasn’t sure if Skull’s tactical guess was correct, but he knew the Chairman was the ultimate prize. He decided it was better to ensure the Chairman’s downfall personally.
Ramon picked up one last dumbbell and hurled it with terrifying precision at the gym’s exit door, the impact blowing the door right off its hinges.
"When we return, you better be done with him," Ramon warned. He engaged the leg actuators of his exoskeleton, sprinting forward in a blur of mechanical power as he exited the room to find Max.