Warnings: Some violence, language.
The next morning, Jack forced himself to eat a small breakfast before heading to the kwoon. Carter had warned against nerves, but the small, fiery ball of anxiety weighing in his gut didn't care. It sat heavily as he stripped down to his sparring uniform of light pants and a sleeveless shirt that allowed for full motion of his arms and legs. He warmed up alone, well aware of the eyes on him, and the loud group around Hanson, pumping up his co-pilot.
When Marshal Pentecost arrived, all noise quieted, every occupant in the room straightening with respect. He surveyed them all, then turned his gaze to Jack and Hanson alone. "To your positions."
Jack claimed his staff and took up his stance across from Jonas, hefting the weapon in his grip. After spending years training with the Academy staves, this one felt foreign, rougher along its surface, but matched the weight ounce for ounce. He stared Hanson down across the mat. Around them, the packed kwoon quieted to an intense silence.
Jack observed Hanson's stance with a critical eye. At first blush it seemed solid enough, but as he continued to watch Hanson shifted subtly, bouncing on the balls of his feet like he couldn't find his resting balance. In contrast Jack felt like a rock- nothing could upend him. Hanson itched to begin; Jack waited, and breathed.
"Begin!"
Jonas mistook Jack's calm for reticence. He lashed out with a flashy barrage that opened his guard in a myriad of opportunities for Jack to retaliate. Jack ignored the first two openings, emboldening Hanson further, then used the third to sweep Hanson's feet out from under him when he over-reached on an overhand swing. With his stick at Hanson's throat a second later, the kwoon seemed to freeze around him as the audience registered the quick turnabout.
"1-0," Pentecost announced, breaking the spell. Some of the audience were there to support him too, Jack realized as the crowd clapped while he and Hanson reset to their starting positions. Most of the pre-bout rowdiness disappeared in the presence of the presiding Marshal, but the fervor still lingered just below the surface.
"Set," Pentecost commanded. Jack chose a different form this time, shifting his hands into long form. He examined Jonas' pose and paused. The derisive humor in his copilot's gaze hardened into something sinister. Doubt trickled through Jack's mind once more. The abrupt shift in Hanson's disposition set off warning bells, adding tension to muscles that had previously been relaxed with confidence. Jack wanted to pilot, but was it worth it to drift with this guy?
This time when Jonas moved, he didn't waste a single ounce of energy on flashy swings. Jack cut against Hanson's jabs with long sweeps, maintaining distance as Hanson pressed closer. When their staves connected, Jack could feel the rigidity of Jonas' form, and almost smirked. Hanson had skill, but now he moved too stiffly, too eager to advance, to compensate for the sloppiness of the last bout.
Jack feinted an overhead blow, shifting his stance just enough to entice Hanson into a bind. Hanson took the bait, and stepped into the push to unbalance him, only to leave himself exposed when Jack simply let his staff slide in his grip until back in short form. Immediately he struck at Jonas' exposed shoulder, who rolled to narrowly avoid it. Jack followed, and when Hanson snapped back to his feet, he thrust the end of his staff towards Hanson's ribs.
Hanson dodged and trapped Jack's staff against his side, refusing to let Jack draw back to strike again. Hanson used his remaining hand to swing his staff towards Jack's head. Jack copied Hanson's gimmick and barely brought his own hand up in time to keep the staff from connecting with his skull. The smack of wood against his bare palm made him wince, a concession that elicited a smirk from his opponent.
Ignoring the sting in his hand, Jack was already moving. He brought his back leg up and snapped it out, halting just shy of Hanson's ear. The point was his, barely. Murmurs now echoed through the kwoon, a rumbling hum running counterpoint against the sound of blood rushing in Jack's ears. Pentecost called the reset, and when they broke apart Jack saw Hanson's grin darken: sharp teeth and a hungry gleam sparked in his opponent's eye.
Jack felt his competitive streak rise in response to the bitter glare directed at him. Carter said nothing rode on this match except a few shreds of compatibility. He had no idea whether rivalry was a good thing between copilots, but it was there, no doubt about it. Jack turned his back on Hanson to return to his position and took a moment to visualize his next strategy. He caught sight of Carter herself at the back of the crowd, observing the match stone-faced. Their eyes caught, and Jack nodded in greeting. One eyebrow lifted back at him, and Carter settled more comfortably against the padded bulkhead to watch the outcome of the final bout. She didn't look worried at all, which only boosted Jack's confidence more as he turned to face Jonas for the last time.
Jack's budding grin froze when he registered Hanson's eyes tracking between him and Carter. The spirit of competition hardened into something far more dangerous.
"Begin!" the Marshal barked, and this time Jack moved first. He surged across the mat with his staff poised for a forward strike. When Jonas lifted his own weapon to block, Jack swerved to the right, angling for Hanson's solar plexus. Jonas stumbled to avoid the blow, then took advantage of Jack's over-extension on the miss to drive his shoulder into Jack's rib cage, knocking him off balance.
Jack rolled with the momentum, gaining distance to retake his stance. Hanson stayed with him, striking low, then high, and high again as he drove deeper. Something snapped; the rivalry Jack sensed before became self-preservation in the face of Jonas' intensity. Hanson struck with all his strength, every blow sending tingles up Jack's arms. He managed to keep up, but it took too much of his focus ot avoid the strikes. He failed to spot Hanson's foot before it snaked around his ankle and pulled, tumbling Jack backwards onto the mat.
Hanson pinned him by straddling Jack's chest, leaning forward to avoid Jack's legs trying to trap him in a grapple, and driving his weight against the staff he pressed across Jack's throat. Jack froze, recognizing the bout was over, but Jonas pressed harder, face red. He ignored Jack's tap-out, and instinct took over when the Marshal delayed calling the bout. Jack tried to speak, but couldn't gather the breath to do so. Hanson's eyes looked straight through him, and in that moment Jack realized Jonas meant to kill him.
A sharp jolt raced down Jack's spine, giving him a desperate burst of energy. His training kicked in, and he let instinct and muscle memory take over. He bucked his hips upwards, unbalancing his enemy and catching Jonas' left wrist in both hands. Jack planted one foot and tucked his chin to one side, rolling them both towards Jonas' trapped arm. The staff scraped painfully against his throat but Jonas ultimately lost his grip. Jack shoved it out of reach and pinned Hanson to the ground with one arm, his free hand curled into a fist, ready to slam into Jonas' face.
"Rangers! The bout is over!" Pentecost finally stepped in, before Jack's fist could make contact. Jack froze immediately at the sound of the Marshal's voice. The world came back into focus, but he had to force himself to release Hanson. For a brief second, he wished the Marshal's bark had come just a second later. He swallowed against a sore throat as he rose to his feet, taking several long steps back to put distance between himself and Hanson before coming to attention in front of Pentecost.
Pentecost regarded him solemnly as Jonas rose. "No point," the Marshal declared. Jack thought he heard a muted shout of protest from Hanson's group, but the Marshal pretended not to notice. "Both Rangers overstepped the rules of the kwoon. Ranger Hanson!"
"Yes, sir!" Hanson responded, breathless from exertion. Jack didn't dare break attention to look at his opponent, but he didn't detect anything strange about Hanson's voice aside from the heavy breathing. No rage, no sign of the violence he'd just visited on his prospective new copilot.
"You will remember that the purpose of these exercises are not to harm! Do I make myself clear?"
"Yes, sir!" Hanson didn't show an ounce of remorse.
"Ranger O'Neill!"
Jack straightened at the Marshal's address. "Yes, sir!" He might have been defending himself, but he had stepped outside the bounds of the kwoon's principles regardless, and expected a similar reprimand.
Pentecost surprised him. "Excellent showing. Your time at the Academy has served you well."
"Yes, sir, thank you, sir!"
"I am satisfied with today's results." Pentecost gave them both hard stares. "Both of you will report to Belladonna Banshee at 1400 hours for your first neural handshake."
"Yes, sir!" they chimed together. Pentecost dismissed them in short order and disappeared, leaving the crowd to follow suit in its own time. Hanson returned to the adulation of his cheer squad, leaving Jack to collect his staff alone. A search of the remaining crowd revealed only a bare wall where Carter has stood only minutes ago. Only Teal'c came over to make sure Jack was okay.
"You did a great job, man" the kwoon master clapped a hand on his shoulder. Jack eyed him warily.
"If you say so," he responded. "Should I be worried that my copilot wants to kill me? No one else seems to be." Not even Teal'c seemed all that concerned. Jack understood that the Marshal outranked everyone on base, including the kwoon master, but even so he would have expected some kind of intervention from the guy whose responsibilities included the safe use his kwoon.
"Hanson doesn't want to kill you," Teal'c assured him with a grin. "Hanson just gets carried away sometimes. Always has."
Jack accepted the towel Teal'c offered him and dried the sweat from his neck. The fibers poked the raw stripe on his throat where the staff had torn skin when they rolled. He checked for blood, and was relieved to find none. "Tell that to the stick he tried to throttle me with."
"Yeah, that wasn't his greatest showing," Teal'c hedged. "I would have stepped in if you hadn't taken care of it yourself."
"Uh huh." Jack didn't believe him. He'd only done what he did because no one intervened. Maybe the Academy's kwoon masters spoiled him for the realities of an active duty kwoon. The space suddenly quieted around him, and Jack realized Jonas and his group had finally left. "Whatever."
Jack turned to leave, only for Teal'c to stop him with a hand on his shoulder. "Look here, Ranger." The easygoing smile no longer softened the kwoon master's features. Jack had his attention. "Start to finish that last bout was barely ten seconds. I realized there was a problem the same time you did. You reacted first. That's all."
Jack didn't respond. Teal'c retracted his hand, and crossed his arms over his chest. "I take safety very seriously. The fact you handled the situation as quickly as you did means you deserve to be here. You're good, O'Neill. It's time you start believing it."
The resentment building in Jack's chest slowly eased. Unlike Hanson, Teal'c seemed sincere. Just hearing someone else confirm that Jonas crossed a line took the edge off this aggression. Deflated, his shoulders sagged. Teal'c sensed the shift in his mood and the hand came back to his shoulder.
"You expected something different today?" Teal'c asked. "Choir of drift-compatible angels, maybe?"
Jack shrugged, wiping his face with the towel. "Not once I met Hanson, I didn't. I dunno, I guess… I wasn't expecting much, but I guess part of me still hoped I'd get something like the stories said."
"I'm sorry, man. It's tough." Teal'c said it as a man who knew from experience. How many pilots had he drifted with over the years?
"What was it like for you?" Jack asked. He watched Teal'c's face carefully, looking for any sign he'd stepped out of bounds. "When you found your pilot, did you get that choir of angels? When did you know you were compatible?"
Teal'c didn't shut him down like Jack half-expected he would. His gaze grew heavy, but his smile remained, even if more nostalgic than before. "The minute I met her," he replied. "I was one of the lucky ones."
Then Teal'c clapped him on the arm and pointed him to the locker room. "You better get moving, man. You've got a lot of work ahead of you."