I spend two long seconds trying to decide if I should block or dodge, which is how I end up doing neither effectively. The punch crashes into my forearms with enough force that I swear I can feel my radius and ulna grinding together. Despite the padded gloves, impact reverberates all the way up to my shoulders.

  "Jesus!" I yelp, backpedaling clumsily. First weekend in June and I'm already getting the shit beaten out of me.

  "I told you I was going to punch you hard," Multiplex says, his voice even and unaffected. The clone circling around me is silent, focused entirely on finding openings in my defense, which—let's be real—is basically just me desperately trying not to get hit in the face again. Meanwhile, the "real" Multiplex stands off to the side, arms crossed, watching with the kind of detached assessment that makes me feel like I'm being dissected.

  "We just did an hour of cardio and weights," I protest, trying to catch my breath. "I'm already gassed before we even started the actual training part."

  "Bad guys aren't going to wait for you to be in peak condition before they attack," the observing Multiplex says flatly. "You'll either learn to fight while exhausted or you'll get used to getting your ass kicked. Your choice."

  I dodge a jab—actually dodge it this time—and feel a flutter of accomplishment until a hook comes out of nowhere and catches me in the ribs. Even with the body protector, it knocks the wind out of me.

  "Less telegraphing," the silent clone suddenly speaks, resuming his circling. "You're showing me everything before you do it."

  The Delaware Valley Defenders' gym feels cavernous today, our voices echoing slightly off the high ceiling. The obstacle courses that the Young Defenders used to run are being dismantled and packed into storage containers, which sends a weird pang through my chest every time I notice it. End of an era, I guess. Two of the four adult Defenders are working out on the far side—Bulwark doing something with kettlebells that defies physics, and Fury Forge stretching on a yoga mat—but otherwise, it's just us. That feels weird. Otherwise? Most of the team is here. Wait! Crossroads and Rampart. They're out. Three of the six. Okay, that's why it feels empty.

  Anyway.

  Me and two Multiplexes.

  Lucky me.

  "The pro boxer-puncher struggles against an equally matched slugger," the observing Multiplex lectures as I barely slip a straight right. "But this isn't an equal match. I have effectively decades of boxing experience, plus height, reach advantages. I'm three inches taller than you and my wingspan is much wider. You're growing like a beanpole but your arms are short. You need to get in too close."

  I throw a jab that should be lightning fast—and it is, my fist moving like a bullet—but somehow he sees it coming a mile away, slipping to the side so effortlessly it's like I'm punching in slow motion. I follow with a cross that has all my weight behind it, the kind of punch that's dropped plenty of goons in the past, but he blocks it with a forearm and counters with a body shot that makes me stumble back.

  "Your punches are strong," Multiplex acknowledges. "But power doesn't matter if you can't connect. Your arms aren't the problem—it's everything else."

  "What's that supposed to mean?" I ask, circling warily.

  "It means you throw hard punches without proper setups. It means you're so focused on your arms and upper body that you forget your legs exist. It means you have no sense of timing, rhythm, or distance."

  He's not wrong. Since I got my powers, I've focused on what comes naturally—hitting hard, taking hits thanks to my regeneration, and using my teeth when things get desperate. But I'm realizing how far that is from actual fighting technique. Aikido throws and BJJ shoots are fun and interesting, but when it comes to knuckle on knuckle, against someone like Multiplex I'm realizing very fast just how hopelessly I'm outmatched.

  The sparring Multiplex feints a jab that I completely bite on, flinching back and raising my guard for a punch that never comes. Instead, he steps in and delivers a flurry of light body shots that I have no answer for. My regeneration means I'll heal fast, but it doesn't make getting hit any more fun in the moment.

  "Stop reacting to what you see right in front of your face," the observing Multiplex says. "You've got good reaction time and peripheral vision—but you're using them as a crutch. You're not thinking ahead. You're offloading too much to your reflexes."

  Something clicks as I manage to block another set of jabs and crosses, this one lighter, barely a tickle - testing me, probing me. I realize I've gotten used to Jordan using their space powers to make enemies miss. I can't remember the last time I actually had to properly dodge something. My style has always been to wait for an opening, or create one by tanking a hit, then counter with everything I've got.

  "So what if I am?" I retort, throwing another combination that Multiplex easily evades. "It's worked so far."

  "Against random thugs, sure," he says, echoing my thoughts in a way that's almost creepy. "But any halfway decent fighter with some experience will wipe the floor with you. And that's before we even get to powered opponents."

  I grunt in frustration, trying to cut off his movement with a hook that misses by a mile.

  "Your only advantages here are your regeneration, your strength, and your bone density," Multiplex continues. "You're still doing the bone conditioning, right?"

  I nod, spitting out my mouthguard into my hand to answer. "Yeah, I beat a bag of gravel every weekend. My regeneration keeps my bones rock hard."

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  "Good. Put that back in," he says, pointing to the mouthguard.

  I comply, just in time to catch another shot to my padded headgear. My ears ring, and I realize I've walked right into his rhythm. Pop-pop, bang, pause, pop, swoosh—there's a pattern to his combinations, but I can't seem to read it fast enough to counter effectively.

  "It doesn't matter how hard you throw a punch if you can't hit me," he says, dancing around me with the grace of someone half his size. For a guy built like a refrigerator, he moves like water. "Your form is decent. Your footwork is tolerable. But you have no sense of timing or rhythm. All I need to do is a little variance, like this,"

  Pop-pa-swoosh, landing maybe a centimeter from my nose - his elbow cocked, clearly ready to actually smash my face in if he wasn't just demonstrating. Right between both of my arms, like my guard doesn't even exist. He pulls his elbow back and gets back into stance, "and you're toast."

  I throw a jab that he slips like it's nothing, then try to follow with a cross that he blocks with his forearm before countering with a body shot that makes me feel like my kidneys are trying to exit through my spine.

  "Fundamentals," the other Multiplex says. "Always back to fundamentals. Your stance is still too wide. You're planting your feet."

  I adjust, trying to keep my weight on the balls of my feet like he taught me. My legs are screaming at this point. My regeneration handles the painful aftermath of lactic acid buildup better than normal humans, but there's only so much mental exertion I can take. My brain is starting to feel like it's wrapped in cotton.

  "Don't overthink it," Multiplex says, somehow reading my mind. "Boxing isn't chess. It's rhythm. It's instinct. You're too in your head."

  "Hard not to overthink when you're constantly telling me everything I'm doing wrong," I mutter through the mouthguard.

  The boxing Multiplex smirks. "You want me to stop pointing out mistakes? Fine. Figure it out yourself."

  He launches into a new combination, and I try to track his hands, looking for the pattern in his movements. I see his weight shift, his right shoulder drop slightly—he's loading up for a cross. I raise my guard, ready to block.

  And then somehow, faster than I can process, I'm flat on my ass on the mat, staring up at the ceiling, my jaw throbbing despite the headgear and mouthguard.

  It takes me a second to piece together what happened. He feinted the cross, I bit on it, and then his left jab caught me clean before I could even register the deception.

  "That's enough for today," the observing Multiplex says, stepping onto the mat as the other one backs away, both of them rolling their shoulders in the exact same motion. It's weirdly mesmerizing to watch.

  "Already?" I ask, removing my mouthguard and sitting up. "But I didn't even land a single solid hit."

  "That wasn't the point of today," he says, offering me a hand up. I take it, letting him pull me to my feet. "The point was diagnostics. Don't worry, you'll get to lay it back into me just as hard later."

  "Diagnostics?"

  "Seeing what you know, what you don't know, and how you respond to pressure," he explains. "Liberty Belle taught you some basics, but she was building a team of young heroes, so she needed to run the gamut of skills for everyone. I'm trying to keep you alive when you're outmatched in a street fighting situation."

  I roll my shoulders, wincing at the stiffness already setting in. "So what's the verdict, doc? Am I a hopeless case?"

  The boxing Multiplex rejoins with the original, melding back into a single person in that weird way that always makes my eyes hurt a little to watch. Multiplex rolls his neck, then fixes me with a calculating stare.

  "You're not hopeless. You have some natural gifts. Your punches are fast and powerful when they land. Your pain tolerance is exceptional, even accounting for your regeneration. And you don't give up, which matters more than technique sometimes." He starts unwrapping the tape from his hands. "But you have three fundamental problems we need to fix."

  "Only three?" I say, trying for humor. "I would've guessed at least a dozen."

  "Three main categories," he clarifies. "First, you don't know how to dodge. You either block or take the hit, but proper evasion? Nonexistent."

  "I dodge," I protest weakly.

  "No, you flinch. It's not the same thing." He demonstrates with a slight movement, his upper body barely shifting as he mimes slipping a punch. "Real dodging is efficient. Minimal movement, maximum effect. You're all over the place."

  I can't really argue with that.

  "Second," he continues, "you're relying too much on your tankiness, and it won't last you forever."

  That brings me up short. "Excuse me? My what?"

  "I'm not here to teach you regulation boxing or get you into a new sport," he says. "I'm here to teach you how to end fights in one or two shots maximum before they become a brawl. How to avoid damage to stretch your effective HP."

  "My what?"

  "Video game term. Hit points. The amount of damage you can take before you're done," he explains, sounding almost embarrassed to use the terminology. "With your regeneration, you can take more hits than average, but that doesn't mean you should. Think of them as multiplying each other. If you can take twenty hits, each one you don't take at all by dodging it is effectively giving you one extra hit to spend in your budget later, for a feint, or a cross-counter, or to get in close with those crazy Mack truck haymakers you like to throw. Your regeneration might stretch your budget further, but you've still got a budget of hits, and you need to economize it."

  I nod slowly, understanding dawning. "And the third problem?"

  "You're not cheating enough. No power use, at all."

  "I use my powers," I say defensively. "My knuckle-teeth—"

  "Are an afterthought. A last resort when conventional fighting fails you. Bonus on-hit damage and little else," He shakes his head. "That's backwards. Your powers should be integrated into everything you do. They should change how you approach the very concept of fighting. You can't just think of them as extras to your... statistics. Your tooth-knuckledusters are impressive but all it does is add a little extra zip to an otherwise normal punch, gives it some puncturing and cutting power. You've barely scratched the surface."

  I frown, not entirely sure what he means. "So... I should just bite everyone right from the start?"

  "No. But you should recognize that I'm already cheating," he says, a hint of a smile at the corner of his mouth. "I can watch you from two angles at once, more if I've got more out. When my duplicate rejoins me, I learn more about you than you can possibly learn about me. I can switch out a tired duplicate for a fresh one. I'm cheating the basic rules of a fair fight."

  "And I should...?"

  "Cheat back," he says simply. "Use every advantage you have. Just don't slit my throat—I need that."

  I can't help but laugh, the tension of the session finally cracking like egg yolk over my head. "Okay. So what does cheating look like for me?"

  "That's what we're going to figure out." He tosses a towel at me, which I catch (barely) and use to wipe the sweat from my face. "Your blood sense, your regeneration, your teeth—all of these need to become tools, not just abilities you happen to have."

  "When do we start?"

  "Next session. For now, go home, rest up, and think about this: what can you do with your powers that no one would expect? What advantages can you create that bypass conventional fighting entirely?"

  I nod, already tired but feeling a strange excitement about the challenge. "Alright. Consider my brain gears turning."

  "Good. And Sam?" he adds as I turn to leave.

  "Yeah?"

  "You're stronger than you think. You've just been playing the wrong game."

  I'm not entirely sure what to make of that, but it feels like a compliment, so I'll take it. As I head toward the locker room, I can't help but cast one last glance at the packing boxes containing the Young Defenders' obstacle course components.

  Maybe it really is the end of an era.