If anyone here plays Rainbow Six: Siege, remember: If you waver... you're mine.

Six fighters lined up across from each other, each in their own version of a guard. I brought my hand down, signaling the start of the matches. Two other matches had judges. I was judging a match between a eighteen year old girl, Lauren, and a seventeen year old boy, Bodhi. Both were excellent for how long they had been practicing (about seven months) and now they were both moving on the balls of their feet, with a little bounce in their step. They circled each other, neither of them willing to make the first move.

"I've seen more action in a game of flimsi, granite, knife, you two," I said in a bored tone. "Pick it up!"

Bodhi smirked and threw a front kick, balancing on one foot and raising his other, throwing out his front foot in a split second. Lauren caught the kick and grabbed it, rushing forward while holding Bodhi's foot. Bodhi fell backwards, landing on his back and slapping out with his hands. He grabbed Lauren's heel and pushed her back with his now-released foot, making Lauren fall flat on her butt. She also slapped out with her hands as Bodhi leapt up on top of her, pinning down one arm with his leg, but Lauren bucked and got her hand free, capturing one of Bodhi's arms and rolling him over, winding up straddling Bodhi's chest and hugging herself to him, keeping her head down. Bodhi pushed one of Lauren's legs down and slipped his own past, then 'shrimping' by pushing himself off to the left side and bringing his other leg back, getting Lauren back into his guard and grabbing one arm, pushing it back through his legs, which was around her neck by now. This position was called 'Giant Killer,' and for good reason; it had killed many gigantic challenges in hand-to-hand combat. It was ripe with options, like a triangle choke or a armlock. Both were deadly, but I trusted the control of each combatant. Lauren pulled her arm, free, though, and got to the side of Bodhi, pushed him over and pinned one arm behind his back, then wrapped one arm around his neck and locked up the choke.

After a few seconds, Bodhi tapped on the ground. Lauren let go of the choke.

"Well, I think I won," Lauren said, without any sense of superiority. She and Bodhi were good friends, and this was the latest in a long string of mixed-martial-arts matches that were, frankly, a coin toss. They were about equal in skill, and they were both remarkably resilient. Heck, they could probably make it through the extended version of Commando Resistance to Interrogation. (Half of that was sitting on a block of iron, staring at a wall, not being allowed to sleep. I daydreamed.)

"You did win," I said, looking Lauren over. "But remember that in a fight, punching your opponent on the ground is a viable tactic. You too, Bodhi."

Both of them nodded and bowed to each other, ending the match. I looked over the rest of the matches, where one pair was busy trading kicks and the other pair was attempting to kill each other on the ground. I walked over to the murderous two.

"Bring it down a notch," I admonished. The two complied. Bodhi and Lauren were also trading kicks now. As I watched, Bodhi brought one leg in front of Lauren's waist and put the other one behind her legs, balancing himself on one hand and pushing Lauren backwards with his top leg, essentially tripping her. The technique was called "Scissor Kick." I enjoyed doing it, but as I watched, Lauren rolled backwards, stood up, darted around a bit, and cartwheeled, kicking Bodhi in the head twice. He dropped like a rock.

I ran over as Lauren came up from her cartwheel, gasping at what she had done. I placed a hand on Bodhi's collarbone, then on his skull, pushing lightly.

"Nothing's broken," I said quietly. "He's fine."

"Oh thank god," Lauren gasped. I bet she had stopped breathing for a moment.

"Alright, can you help me move him off the floor? Actually, better yet, get the nurse," I ordered quietly.

"Okay," Lauren said. She seemed relieved to have something to do. I gathered Bodhi up and brought him over to the side of the training floor. It was the first knockout of the program, but I had (for lack of a better word) various contingency plans for the inevitable knock out.

So, I was prepared for this. Lauren returned a minute later with the nurse, who immediately began her work. Lauren, for her part, stood, looking on, not doing much.

"Do you still want to spar?" I asked. She nodded. "Alright, I'll spar you."

Lauren had a look of terror on her face as I started to unclip my armor from the bodysuit I wore. "Oh, relax. I'm not going to… how did you put it? Take you down and flip you over while breaking your arm- all at the same time?"

"Well, that's the watered down version," Lauren said, just barely managing not to stammer.

"Well, whatever the normal version is, I promise not to do it."

"The normal version is you snapping a neck instead of an arm."

"Well, I won't break anything in your body, unless it's a small amount of skin. Deal?"

"Deal." Lauren took up a guard across from me. I brought my own hands up into guard, whipping my arms up and locking them together with one arm covering my abdomen and the other my head, then dared Lauren to attack.

She didn't disappoint.

I jumped to the side as her front kick soared past, missing me by an inch, hitting my arm and bouncing off. I responded with a high side kick, forcing Lauren to duck. She retaliated- and walked straight into a front kick to her head. She fell backwards and held up one hand, signaling for a ten-second break. I took a knee.

"You okay?"

Lauren put one hand behind her, pushing herself up. "Yeah, I'm okay."

"Good. We have a match to finish."

"Of course." Lauren stood up and shook her head, then threw a side-kick that I never saw coming. I dropped to one knee.

"I suppose that's payback."

"I suppose I now have two points."

"I suppose we should continue with the match."

"I suppose... I'll shut up."

"I'll do the same." I threw a uppercut at Lauren, who danced back and responded with a false forward punch. I saw it in her eyes and threw a fake front kick. She jumped back. I faked another front kick. And another. And another. And another. And another. And another. And another. And then a real one.

Lauren didn't see it coming and it caught her right in the chest. She stumbled back, but didn't fall. "Impressive."

"Would have been more impressive if I didn't nearly fall," Lauren retorted.

"You kept your balance after being kicked in the chest while unbalanced. That's impressive."

"If you say so." Lauren threw a straight punch, which I blocked and grabbed, then pinned behind her back. She groaned and tried to spin out, but I rotated with her and slowly increased the pressure of the armlock (actually called a kimura, but pronounced ki-more-a).

Eventually, she tapped, which signaled that she was in pain and conceded. I called time and ended the class only a minute over the scheduled time. Bodhi had stirred about thirty seconds ago and the nurse had arrived and declared him okay.

The class bowed out and I reattached the armor plating to my bodysuit, wondering why in the heck I had ever let up sparring. Not what Ezra and I occasionally did; proper sparring, with points and whatnot. (If you want a more detailed description, look up MMA Sparring on the net. I'd describe it but it's…. complicated.)

School was over now. Actually, it was over an hour ago, but the MMA class took place after school. I didn't entirely care when it happened, as long as I got to teach. It was actually really nice to teach someone how to flip someone else. All these thoughts ran through my head as I exited the building. Lauren had stayed behind with Bodhi and the nurse, likely to either A) keep sparring or B) walk him home. I did not care which, though I did give them a strong warning to not spar without someone supervising. If they got hurt, it was their fault.

They usually just grabbed their gear and walked home, too. I gave them the freedom of choice because I trusted them to not kark up and wind up accidentally hauling my shebs onto the hibachi for a grilling by the LCU (Not to be confused with the LDC. If it gets confusing, tell me, please). I swung my leg over my speeder and gunned the engine, racing out into the grasslands around the Tower.

The half-finished framework of Specter House (My thanks to The Lone Rebels 2.0 for letting me use that name. Kisses!) passed by on my right, a skeletal pile of durasteel with piles of materials neatly stacked in durable 'tents' which were actually made of plasteel and were more durable than real tents. Frankly, they were more like mini-warehouses.

The scene vividly reminded me of the rebuilding after the Dome. Materials scattered all around the area, a massive framework of durasteel in the middle, volunteers rebuilding it. And, of course, the attempted takeover….

Five Years Ago…

Other people were celebrating about the return of true democracy to Lothal. There was a giant party in Capital City, with streamers and ticker tape. I on the other hand, was climbing a mountain in the North Pole of Lothal, trying to gather some sort on intel about a lost recon patrol who had been gathering intel on a mysteriously lost emergency signal from a observational post up here. So, while all of Capital City was making merry, I was freezing my shebs off on a ledge of a mountain designated North-A-18, using some macrobinoculars to look over a large encampment of snowtroopers with hundreds of tents just outside of the observation post. My armor helped modulate the weather, but it wasn't perfect and Lothal's poles are fekking freezing. I shifted and moved, trying to get some blood circulating through my legs.

A patrol of snowtroopers walked past my hiding position, not noticing the white-clad Mando a few meters above. The temptation to drop a thermal detonator into their midst was insane. I resisted the urge and turned my focus back to the observation post.

This op had been particularly fun in the beginning. Thane Kyrell, a SpecForce commando had commed me on the way here, asking for some advice on a date. We talked for most of the ride, because there wasn't much else to do except clean and calibrate weapons and I had already done that. Basically, the conversation went hi, can you give me advice, I said I'm not the best person to ask about that, Thane said I don't care do it anyway. Then I gave some advice. I ended the call when the craft I was in, a modified Kom'rk fighter configured for stealth insertions, gave the fifteen minute chime and I told Kyrell, "Go deploy, commando. Remember the mission plan."

He laughed. I ended the call and briefed my squad on the mission, then put on my parachute (we had to use shabla parachutes because jetpacks were too loud, apparently. At least the drop was at night) and readied for the drop. We ran silent for about five minutes then began the drop sequence, where we walked to the back of the craft and waited for ten seconds before the floor opened up and we dropped. Maloia did a backflip to show off. I laughed, then walked to the edge, put one leg over, and front-flipped off while spinning to the side. Maloia told me over comms she was impressed. Then, we free fell to one hundred feet, where we opened the parachutes and floated down the rest of the way. At ten feet, we cut the parachutes, landed, and moved to observational posts. Lika called in two E.K.I.A. I wondered why she had killed two enemies but kept it to myself.

And, I later found out, those two kills screwed us over. Around fifteen minutes into overwatch, a sense of paranoia and watchfulness came over the camp. They stayed like that for the rest of the overwatch, which made our mission of get in, get intel, get out quite a bit harder.

We extracted, without gaining the intel we needed, but we scrambled a response force, which flew up and landed to take on the Imp force with my team front and center. That went well…

I dove into cover, drawing a throwing knife and chucking it a heavy snowtrooper. Both my blasters had run out of ammo. I signaled for Dilloi to cover me as I reloaded. A squad of heavy gunners got out of cover and began washing the area with fire, unleashing a torrent of lasers from their Z-8 cannons. I took the opportunity to switch cover and drop a thermal detonator into a enemy repeating blaster emplacement. The det went off and a enemy snowtrooper flew behind my cover. I put three rounds into them before I stopped. Shab. Don't waste ammo, you fekkin shinie. You have little enough as it is.

Three out of ten magazines left. This was worse than the old story of Darkknell. No thermal detonators left. One thermal imploder. Two out of three throwing knives. My CQC knife. Medkit. That was everything I had on my person.

Lika aimed a rifle and took out a snowtrooper with a cannon, so I took advantage and vaulted my cover, dashing forward and jumping the cover of three snowtroopers, who each received rounds to the cranium. I retrieved my throwing knife from a dead snowtrooper, then got shot in the shoulder.

Of course, this just made me mad.

I screamed in pure rage and grabbed a rotary cannon, turning the fire onto the snowtroopers, cutting them down in a sea of blue blaster bolts, fire churning through my veins. My squad told me I went slightly insane. I don't disagree. I was pissed and had a rather fire-y desire to make some snowmen die.

You invade my world, waste my resources, kill my people, under my watch- you die.

According to my squad again, I ended the day only by passing out after killing seven snowtroopers with my knife all at once. I remember that bit. I leapt down into a trench and drew my knife, stabbing one trooper and kicking him into another as I caught one's blade and reversed the tip, driving it back into his head. Another one tried to shoot me, so I threw the knife at his hip and punched him out before removing the blade and stabbing another one in the neck, cutting his artery and whipping around and chucking a knife into another snowtrooper before kicking one in the knee and stabbing him in the heart and then pivoting on my heel and throwing my final non-CQC knife into another stormtrooper. The final one shot me in the hand so I threw my CQC knife and killed him, before taking my knife back, and I guess blacking out.