Year: 2019
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The world after a loss had a different sound. The roar of the crowd was replaced by the hum of the MRI machine, the whispered consultations of doctors, the soft, careful tones people use around the wounded. Kyon's right eye was a swollen, purple cavern sealed shut. His nose was re-broken, a familiar agony. Three new stitches marched across his eyebrow. The ribs, mercifully, were only deeply bruised. The concussion was moderate—the sixth official one on Dr. Kozlov's grim ledger.
They kept him in a Las Vegas hospital for observation for two days. Thorne never left his side, a silent, stoic mountain in the corner chair. He handled the media blackout, turned away all but essential visitors. Hayes was allowed in once, his energy subdued, talking in low tones about "narrative recalibration" and "the hero's journey requiring a fall." Kyon heard none of it. The pain was a thick fog, but beneath it was a colder, clearer sensation: the void of defeat. The 0 was gone from his record. The Phantom had been made flesh, and flesh could be broken.
On the third morning, they were discharged. The flight back to Detroit was a silent journey. Kyon stared out the window at the endless, wrinkled brown landscape, seeing only the looping replay of Sharpe's counters, the feel of the canvas, the look in Sharpe's eyes when he'd smiled through the blood—not contempt, but something closer to pity. You're just a brawler with a good chin.
Thorne's silence was different. It wasn't the focused quiet of preparation or the satisfied quiet of victory. It was a heavy, simmering silence, filled with something Kyon couldn't name. Disappointment, surely. But it felt sharper, hotter.
They arrived at The Last Round after midnight. The renovated gym, Kyon's proudest investment, felt like a museum to a dead king. His national and Olympic trophies gleamed under their lights. The new PHANTOM logo was everywhere. It all felt like a lie.
"Get some rest," Thorne said, his voice gravelly with exhaustion. "We'll talk tomorrow. We rebuild." He didn't meet Kyon's eyes.
Kyon nodded and went not to his condo, but to the old cot in the storage room. The boiler's rumble was a comfort. He lay in the dark, the river stone cold in his hand, and slept a black, dreamless sleep.
He awoke to the sound of raised voices. Thorne's, a guttural roar, and another—higher, strained, familiar. He padded out of the storage room towards the office.
The door was ajar. Thorne stood behind his desk, fists planted on the wood, his face a thunderhead. Facing him, pale and tense, was Ben "Big Ben" Carter.
"You knew the timeline, Ben!" Thorne snarled. "You knew he wasn't ready for that kind of puzzle yet! You said Sharpe was perfect after the title eliminator!"
"I said he was ready for a test!" Ben shot back, uncharacteristically defensive. "The kid was cruising! He needed a problem that wouldn't just walk onto his punches! How was I supposed to know Sharpe had evolved that damn counter? The data from his last three fights showed nothing like that!"
"Data?" Thorne spat the word like poison. "We don't fight on data! We fight in a ring! You got greedy. You saw the Apex money, the spotlight, and you pushed him into a fight he wasn't molded for!"
You? Kyon's mind stuttered. Ben? The gentle giant who clapped him on the back, who gave him advice on inside fighting? Ben was… involved in matchmaking?
"I didn't push him, Marcus!" Ben insisted, his voice dropping. "Sterling approved it. The network wanted it. It was the logical next step. Sometimes the logical step is off a cliff. It happens."
"Not to him!" Thorne roared, slamming a fist on the desk so hard the phone jumped. "Not now! He was the key! The perfect key! And you blunted him!"
The air left the room. The key?
Ben saw Kyon then, standing in the doorway. His face fell, a look of profound guilt and sorrow washing over his features. "Kid… I'm sorry. You fought your heart out."
Thorne whirled around. His eyes, usually so carefully guarded, were wide with a rage so deep and personal it was terrifying. He saw Kyon and the rage didn't subside; it focused.
"Get out, Ben," Thorne said, his voice dangerously low.
Ben gave Kyon one last pained look and shuffled out of the office, past Kyon, his head bowed.
Silence descended, thick and choking. Kyon stepped into the office. "What was that?"
"Nothing," Thorne said, turning to look out the grimy window at the alley. "Business. Ben works for Sterling. Scout, sometimes assistant matchmaker. He's got a good eye, but he's too swayed by the modern crap."
"That's not what it sounded like," Kyon said, his own voice quiet. "It sounded like I was a 'key.' A key to what?"
Thorne didn't turn around. His shoulders were impossibly tight. "To winning. To a title. What else?"
"It didn't sound like that." The cold clarity that had followed him since the loss sharpened. Pieces, ignored for years, began to click together with awful, slow certainty. Thorne's fanatical focus. His obsession with Kyon's "gift." The way he'd taken in a homeless, broken teenager with no questions asked. The sheer, grinding relentlessness of it all. The anger now wasn't about a lost fight; it was about a ruined plan.
Kyon took another step forward. "When you found me in the alley. You said you'd been watching me. For weeks. Why?"
"I told you why. I saw you move."
"You saw a tall, skinny kid who could dodge. There are a thousand of those. Why me? Why bring me here, feed me, train me, turn me into… this?" He gestured at his own battered face.
Thorne finally turned. The rage was still there, but it had banked, replaced by a bleak, icy resolve. "Because you could be great."
"Bullshit." The word hung in the air, shocking in its rarity from Kyon's lips. "You don't do this for greatness. You do it for a reason. Ben said 'the timeline.' What timeline?"
Thorne stared at him for a long moment, his jaw working. The facade, the gruff mentor mask, finally cracked. What lay beneath was raw, old, and bitter. "Sit down, Kyon."
Kyon remained standing.
Thorne sighed, a sound of immense weariness, and sank into his chair. He didn't look at Kyon. He looked at his own scarred, knotted hands. "His name is Rafe Solano."
The name meant nothing to Kyon.
"Twenty-two years ago," Thorne began, his voice a distant monotone, "I was 'The Anvil.' I was 24-1. A contender. I had a shot at the world title. My promoter set up a final eliminator. The winner got the champion. My opponent was a slick, dirty Venezuelan bastard named Esteban Ruiz. Tough fight. I was winning. In the eighth round, I had him hurt. I went to finish him."
He paused, his hands clenching. "Ruiz's manager was Rafe Solano. Even then, he was a snake. As I moved in, Ruiz—on Solano's instruction, I'd bet my life on it—threw a deliberate, full-force headbutt. Split my brow to the bone. Blood was in my eyes. I couldn't see. The ref missed it. Ruiz pounced. The fight was stopped. I lost. My face… it needed thirty stitches. The orbital bone was fractured."
He looked up, and for the first time, Kyon saw the true depth of the old scar over Thorne's left eye, a gnarled trench in his leathery skin. "But that wasn't the end of it. The injury… it messed with my depth perception. I fought three more times. I lost two. I was done at 26. My shot was gone. Solano? He went on. He took that dirty win as a credential. He built a stable. He became a powerful manager, then a promoter. He's now the head of Valor Fight Promotions. One of the biggest in the world. He has the current WBC champion at 160 pounds, Diego 'El Diablo' Cruz. A monster Solano molded from childhood, another of his perfect, vicious weapons."
The story settled in the room, cold and heavy.
"And me?" Kyon asked, though he already knew.
"You," Thorne said, locking eyes with him, "were my answer. My vengeance. A ghost to haunt his house. From the moment I saw you, I saw the tools to build the perfect anti-Solano fighter. Not a brawler. A phantom. Someone who could make his crude, powerful, dirty fighters look foolish. Someone who could walk through his stable and take what he took from me. The title shot. The legacy. I was going to guide you to the top, right to the door of Diego Cruz, and watch you destroy him. Watch Solano's face as his empire was dismantled by a kid from an alley."
The truth was a physical blow. The hollow in Kyon's chest, which had been filled with purpose, now yawned open again, wider and darker. His entire life for the past four years—the grueling training, the pain, the glory, the obsession—was not for his dream. It was for an old man's grudge. He was a weapon. A customized instrument of revenge.
"The timeline," Kyon whispered. "You had a schedule. To get me to Cruz before you got too old? Before Solano retired?"
Thorne nodded, a sharp, pained jerk of his head. "Yes. The loss to Sharpe… it sets us back a year, maybe more. Solano is 68. He could retire, sell his company. My chance… our chance… could vanish." He said 'our chance' but it was clear whose chance it really was.
Kyon felt a dizzying mix of emotions: betrayal, fury, a profound sense of foolishness. But beneath it, a strange, cold understanding. Hadn't he used Thorne just as much? Used him as a father, a savior, a forge? Their relationship was always a transaction: safety and purpose for dedication and victory. He just hadn't known the currency was vengeance.
"All of it?" Kyon's voice was hollow. "The food. The roof. The training. It was all just to get your shot at Solano?"
"No!" Thorne surged to his feet, the anger returning. "Damn it, Kyon, look at what you've become! Look at what you've achieved! Gold medalist! Top-ten contender! I gave you the tools, but you built the house! The vengeance… that was the engine. But the car, the driver… that's you. That's all you. I believed in you. I believed you could be the greatest. Not just to beat Solano, but to be the best I've ever seen!" His voice broke. "You are the greatest thing I've ever done. My masterpiece. And yes, I wanted my masterpiece to hang in the gallery of the man who burned down my first studio. Is that so evil?"
The raw pain in Thorne's voice was real. The mentorship hadn't been a lie. The belief hadn't been a lie. But it had been built on a foundation of deceit.
Kyon turned and walked out of the office. He couldn't be in that room anymore. He went to the ring and climbed in. He stood in the center, the place where he had found his identity. Now it felt like a stage in someone else's play.
Thorne followed him, standing at ringside. "What now?" he asked, his voice stripped bare.
Kyon looked down at him. The man who had saved him. The man who had used him. They were the same man.
"I don't know," Kyon said. It was the truth.
He spent the next three days in near-total isolation. He ignored Hayes's calls. He didn't train. He walked the city again, but now every alley, every crumbling wall, seemed to whisper not of his past, but of Thorne's design. Had Thorne known about his father? Had that been part of the calculation—a kid already primed for pain, already a survivor?
Dr. Kozlov came for a check-up. She examined his eye, his coordination. "The physical healing is on schedule. The mental healing…" She studied his face. "The loss is a wound too. You must tend to it."
"What if the fight wasn't for me?" he asked her, the words surprising himself.
She paused, her intelligent eyes softening. "Then you must decide what the next one is for."
On the fourth day, Frank Sterling called. His tone was grandfatherly, devoid of blame. "Losses happen, kid. Especially to the special ones. They get tested earlier. Sharpe is a nightmare for anyone. You showed more heart than any fighter I've seen in a decade. Now we learn. We rebuild. I have a name for you. A comeback fight. A confidence builder."
Kyon listened, saying nothing.
"His name is Tomas 'The Tank' Petrov. Bulgarian. Strong as an ox, comes forward, decent power, but slow. A flat-footed brawler. Exactly what you need to get your rhythm back. We do it in four months, in Detroit. You knock him out, you erase the doubt."
After Sterling hung up, Kyon found Thorne in the gym, methodically wiping down the heavy bag. The old routine. The silent apology.
"Sterling called," Kyon said. "Tomas Petrov."
Thorne stopped wiping. He didn't turn around. "Petrov's a brute. You'll box his ears off. It's a good fight."
"Is it part of the timeline?" Kyon asked, his voice flat.
Thorne turned slowly. The raw emotion from the office was gone, replaced by a weary resignation. "There is no timeline anymore, Kyon. Not the old one. The plan… it was always more fragile than I wanted to admit. It relied on you being perfect. You're not perfect. You're human. I forgot that." He took a step closer. "The vengeance… it kept me warm for twenty years. But building you… that kept me alive. So you tell me. What do you want? You want to walk away? The money you have, it's enough. You can be done. No one would blame you."
Kyon looked at the ring. He thought of the smile on Sharpe's face. He thought of the feel of the gold medal. He thought of the river stone, solid and simple. He thought of the phantom in the alley, who just wanted to hit back.
He wasn't a weapon. Not anymore. He was a fighter. His fighter.
"I'm not done," Kyon said, the words final. "But I fight for me now. My goals. My 'greatest.' Not your ghost."
Thorne held his gaze for a long moment, then gave a single, slow nod. "Then that's what we do."
It wasn't forgiveness. It wasn't a fresh start. It was a new contract, negotiated on the rubble of the old one. The mentor and the prodigy still needed each other, but the foundation had shifted from vengeance to a colder, more honest truth: mutual necessity and a shared, damaged history.
The Phantom had lost his first fight. And in the aftermath, he had discovered the man pulling his strings. Now, he had to decide if he would cut the strings, or take them in his own hands and learn to be the puppeteer of his own destiny. The road to the greatest of all time was no longer a straight path laid by Marcus Thorne. It was a maze, and Kyon had just found out the walls were made of mirrors, reflecting the pain and ambition of everyone who had ever shaped him.