Beating Chalyze Bamber in the first singles round had proved that Codi's reputation was more than warranted. Her next match, however, took on far greater significance in the eyes of the Gauntlet world. Although on pure results it looked to be a mismatch, the coming encounter had a history that elevated it above all others taking place that day.

Codi's next opponent was Max Lannigan.

Max had upset the number seventeen seed from Nebula to book a place in the second round, a feat that had the journalists drooling over the prospect of a grudge match between him and his old Brax-Delta team-mate.

Luck had kept them from clashing in the knockouts last year, but now that the confrontation loomed before her, Codi didn't know how to feel about it. A year ago they'd been friends, but since their old academy closed its doors they'd fallen out of contact. Now she had to view him as just another obstacle on the road to her Gauntlet championship. Any other attitude was unacceptable, both to her academy and to her.

Her mind flashed back to that strange interview he'd given before the knockouts had gotten underway. Was it confidence born of ignorance? But how could he be ignorant of what she could do? They'd spent the better part of a year fighting side-by-side. Was he just trying to play mind games? If so, he was in for a rude surprise.

Thradd Winters walked with her as they navigated the storm of reporters that lined the passages to the Arena entrance, their camera drones tracking her like persistent metal flies, voices chattering incessantly in her ears.

"He might have been your team mate before," Thradd said quietly, guiding her with hands on her shoulders. "But this kid threw down a challenge for you in those interviews. He knew he was good enough to get here, and he thinks because you used to fight together, he's got some kind of an edge." He pulled her to a stop, looking her in the eye. "That's where he's wrong, isn't he?"

"You bet," Codi told him firmly, seething at the notion that Max thought he had some kind of psychological advantage just because they'd spent a single year at the same academy. "He's trying to mess with the wrong girl."

"Glad to hear it." He jerked his head to one side to avoid the swoop of a camera drone, face pinching in annoyance. "Just go in there and do what you do best. On paper this kid's got no chance."

"More than just on paper." Codi cracked her fists together twice, feeling a reassuring vibration pass through the exoskeleton from the force.

They mercifully cleared the incessant din of the crowds, emerging into the relative quiet of the main arena corridor. The doors waited, looming and inviting all at the same time. Beyond them was just another opponent – one more step on the climb to the ultimate prize. She turned to face Thradd rolling her neck from side to side to loosen up. Then she gave him a predatory smile.

"Hope you're ready for a highlight reel," she told him. "This might get ugly."

"As long as you win."

"Count on it."

Five minutes later she was stalking out into the glare of the arena, the roar of the Battlecast faithful blazing in her ears.

The dark bowl they would be fighting in yawned out in front of her, and it was dominated by a whirling construct of arms and spheres. It took Codi a moment to realise that it was a gigantic mechanised model of the Solar System. Centred on an enormous golden globe, nine enormous upward curving spars of solid metal spun lazily, each one thick enough for a car do drive along and mounted with a sphere depicting the various planets. Codi didn't remember all the names – she'd never bothered to learn them. This display was more for the benefit of local fans than anyone else.

Each sphere sported ringed bars of use as handholds, and anti-grav launchers on top of them to promote some aerial acrobatics. At the top of the far lip of the bowl, her eyes locked onto the tall grey armoured figure of her opponent. Max Lannigan, in his last competitive year in the junior categories, was trying to make a run to the Gauntlet final. Codi had no intention of letting that happen. She'd watched his previous fights and saw nothing to be afraid of. He'd improved since last year, with a more definite killer instinct, but she'd scaled up too. Max had spent last year in her shadow and this year would be no different.

No one is unbeatable, she reminded herself. Complacency could kill her competition. While she had full confidence in her ability to deal with her former team-mate, he had already upset one higher seed to get here.

The time for introspection came to an end, however, with the sound of the klaxon.

Codi let gravity do the work as she raced down the slope of the bowl, timing her run to meet the second outermost ring – a big sapphire blue globe – and with a lazy leap, she latched onto it. Spidering up to the top of the sphere, she looked for her opponent.

Max surfaced much closer to the centre, on the third globe from the middle and he immediately flung himself off the anti-grav launcher towards her.

Feeling the adrenaline begin to thunder in her veins, Codi waited until he reached the top of his arc before hopping backwards into the anti-grav launcher. She angled herself so that the machine would sling her in a straight line to meet Max in mid-air, and her aim was true. They crashed together in a flurry of blows, and just as they began to fall, Codi disengaged, using her opponent as a spring board and kicking away.

She thudded against another of the spinning arms, and stayed prone as a second one swung overhead. The gaps between them were only a few feet, enough that no-one could ever be caught and crushed, but not enough to actually stand through. When she shot back upright again, she spotted Max climbing back up onto the outermost sphere, an expression of annoyance stamped on his normally calm features.

Wanna go again? she thought to herself.

Twice more they took to the air, glancing across each other, only have seconds to land what strikes they could before the window of opportunity was closed by gravity. Although she felt like she was getting the best of the exchange, Codi still felt frustration building inside her. Pecking at each other like this wasn't the way a knockout fight should be carried out. She wanted to lock Max down and make him fight her toe to toe.

As the match wore on, it became apparent to her that his coach must have told him to avoid exactly that. Every time she thought she'd cornered him into a space where they could duke it out, he would bounce away, looking instead for another flashing, airborne engage, and angle of attack that only left him in her range for a moment. His speed and technique spoke volumes about how much time he'd put into this tactic. But he hadn't factored in one thing.

It was making Codi mad.

For all his bluster and mind games, Max knew he couldn't stand and just fight her blow for blow, and a well of determined fury boiled up inside her at the cowardice of it. Logic be damned; this was no way to put on a show.

Rather than looking for a window to hit him, Codi started looking for a chance to grab him. Their aerial dance continued for minutes, each brief clash coinciding with undulating swells of noise from the spectators, but eventually, she got what she wanted. After another short back and forth, Max disengaged again and jumped, flipping backwards and aiming for another of the anti-grav launchers, trying to fire himself into a position behind her.

What he didn't know was that Codi had been waiting for just such a move. She made a show of trying to follow him, but at the last second, darted backwards and tracked his jump trajectory. As he looped through the air she lowered all her gravity fields and leapt after him.

Without the assistance of a launcher she moved at a much slower speed and had a lot less momentum, but that didn't stop her. He swept overhead, unable to change his trajectory in mid-air, and Codi clamped both arms around his shins in a constricting grasp, squeezing as tightly as she could. Then she ramped all the gravity fields of her exoskeleton back up to maximum, turning herself into a ball and chain that pulled Max back down to Earth.

They slammed down against one of the moving spars right in front of the globe that represented the Sun – a huge yellow orb easily fifteen meters tall. Max kicked wildly and tried to roll clear, but Codi wasn't about to let him get away. Just before he slipped over the side out of danger, she caught him by the back collar of the exoskeleton and dragged him to his feet with a snarl of exertion.

Battle lust blazed through Codi's body as she finally got to unleash the aggression that had been building and building through the match. Shoving Max backwards and avoiding the worst of his attempts at retaliation, she rammed him up against the yellow surface of the central sphere with a final shove.

Then the blows started flying. His snide words from the interviews seared in her mind as she lashed her former team-mate with wild, scything haymakers and bludgeoning kicks. A match for anyone – not on your life. He squirmed, blocking and trapping one of her arms under his, but before he could do anything with the respite, she head-butted him with scream of pent-up anger, striking with such force that he was again knocked back into the side of the globe and lost his grip on her.

He started trying to scramble up the side of the largest sphere, to put some distance between them, but it was no use. He didn't have time to get to the anti-grav launched at the apex as Codi chased him upwards. She caught his leg and hauled him back down, and they began trading blows while latched to the side of the enormous globe.

As she fought, Codi quickly formulated a plan that might put a stop to Max's ill-conceived attempts to goad her for good. Out of the corner of her eye, she noted the positions of the nearest orbiting globes, and all she had to do was pick her moment. When the time was right, she ducked a snaking jab and surged up to drive an uppercut hard into Max's jaw with enough force to almost lift him clean off the grip rails.

Locking her feet against the bar, she gripped her dazed opponent by the front collar of his exoskeleton and ripped him from the side of the yellow sphere, throwing him at the nearest planet as it swept past. He hit the anti-grav launcher on top of the red planet and as he did, Codi bunched her legs and fired herself towards him. As the anti-grav launcher tossed her adversary skyward, she flew straight at him, twisting her body and meeting him like a missile.

Both her feet slammed into his chest plate with shattering force and she used the buffer of his body to angle herself to bounce off and catch another planet as it swung past, dangling by one arm and watching the fruits of her labour.

It was like Max had been smashed out of the sky by an enormous baseball bat, the force slinging him straight into one of the outer planets. He hit it so hard that the grip bars snapped cleanly and he was driven into the structure of the globe itself, leaving a man-shaped crater in the surface. Then he fell forward, slamming face first into the metal spar below and bouncing off it, before tumbling down into the base of the arena.

And he stayed there.

Codi clambered up to the top of the globe as the final klaxon shrieked through the swelling roar of her supporters. Gradually the spinning arms decelerated and when her planet came to a stop, Codi raised her fists into the air again, rocking her head back, closing her eyes and basking in the warm glow of another victory.

One step closer.

*

Once the elation of her win began to subside, Codi tried to find Max. She wasn't sure exactly what she wanted to say, but it didn't quite feel right just leaving that as their last interaction. She was well aware she'd put on a combat clinic – maybe he didn't want to see her; embarrassed or enraged by the loss. She certainly knew how that felt.

It occurred to her, belatedly, that it would be worth checking the medical centre. No medics had come charging out onto the scene, but that didn't mean her last wild manoeuvre hadn't caused any damage. In the moment, it had felt amazing, but now she felt more than a little discomfort at having wrecked Max's competition so comprehensively.

It turned out that hunch was correct, but when she found Max, she didn't get a chance to formulate a coherent thought. He came storming out of the medical centre and when he saw her, his face crumpled with what she could only describe as hatred. The look was so strange on his features that she actually stopped walking, eyes widening in surprise. Max didn't stop though – he just kept walking right towards her. Desperately she wracked her brain for something sensible to say.

"Max, I ... I just wanted – HEY!" she yelped as he simply barged past her without a word, sending her stumbling into the wall. She was so shocked she didn't even have time to feel angry. Codi watched in disbelief as Max trudged away from her without as much as a backward glance. She shook her head, and slumped against the wall with a sigh as he disappeared around the corner. It looked like he'd also learned how to be a sore loser from his time at Knossos City Academy.

She didn't have long to think about it though. Less than thirty seconds later two familiar figures emerged from the corner Max had just disappeared around. Kye and Rokki walked side-by-side, the former fidgeting awkwardly with his hands, as though ill-at-ease around the rough-featured brawler from Firequake. They spotted her, and Kye glanced back the way they'd come, grimacing. They walked over to her until they stood in a tight triangle. Codi stuffed her hands into the pockets of her Battlecast jacket and giving them an expectant look.

"Just passed Max in the corridor. He looked ... tense," Kye said awkwardly after a moment.

She raised an eyebrow, unimpressed. "You could say that."

"You okay?"

"I won, didn't I?"

"That's not what I asked."

"I'm fine." She didn't quite believe that, but she wasn't in the mood to talk about it either. "So what's going on? Didn't figure you two would be hanging out as buddies."

"Brains here's not so bad," Rokki chuckled, giving Kye a good natured shove that nearly sent him sprawling. "I think we're gettin' along just fine."

Codi narrowed her eyes at him, the memory of the clash in the paired match still raw in the back of her mind. Right now she needed him, but that didn't help assuage the anger she still felt that he'd been responsible for knocking her out – the first defeat she'd endured in the whole competition. Hopefully the last.

Kye glanced between them. "Are you two going to have a problem?"

"Nah, water under the bridge an' that, right?" Rokki said, waving a dismissive hand. "You win some, you lose some. See you did a nice job dustin' your old pal there."

"We'll be fine," Codi said impatiently, looking to Kye. "What do you two want? Chris is about to go into a fight with Dustin Morto, so this better be important."

"Oh, I think so." A knowing smile spread across Rokki's face. "You wanted into the Lock-Tech? Well, now's the best time to do it – while everybody's gogglin' at those two bucket-throwers."

Codi blinked. "Right now?"

"Right now."

"How do we get in?"

"You just leave that t' me," Rokki assured her. "This place got plenty nooks that even the staff don't know about. All I can tell you is that it's somewhere we sure as hell ain't supposed to be, and it's not gonna be comfy."

"I can live with that." She glanced at Kye. "You good with this?"

He shrugged. "If I had a better idea, I'd have told you by now."

"Then I guess we'd better get to it."

"Hold on."

They all turned at the sound of a cold, toneless voice. Codi sucked in a steadying breath when she saw Ripple leaning nonchalantly against the wall of the passage, slender arms folded and her inscrutable gaze boring into them.

"Hey..." Codi managed lamely.

"If we're going to do this, I'm coming with you," Ripple told them, a hint of steel creeping into her voice. "Someone needs to make sure this doesn't get out of control."

Rokki grinned. "Wouldn't dream of it."

Codi sighed, and nodded to the others. "Alright, we've wasted enough time. Let's go see just what Keefer Darkwood's hiding."