Things weren’t going to get better. That wasn’t Coop in doom mode, either. Oh no, it was the cold reality that was his eye. Until he was done fighting, and could get a solid augmentation installed, everything was going to be more muddy and his peripheral vision would remain less than it ever was before. Heading into the battle of his life with such an impediment was a sobering thought. If retirement was something he’d danced around before in the throes of his depression, it was looking more like a reality if things didn’t go well in this next fight. There was no shame in saying it wasn’t the right time for Coop to be on top, with Kriger, the reigning champion, who looked almost unstoppable.

Almost.

There were always cracks in any warrior’s armor and Kriger was no different. His arrogance was his Achilles heel and if it wasn’t for Coop’s own arrogance and his issues with his uncle going into the last fight, things could have ended differently. One wrong move against someone as strong as Kriger was the line between life and death, victory and defeat. This time would be different. He’d throw everything he had at Kriger and leave it all in the arena. It wasn’t fair that he’d go into another fight with Kriger nowhere near 100%, and he believed the league needed to adjust how augmentations were ruled in the case of humans. He could get an implant in his damaged eye to help fix his vision, providing nothing else, nothing that a biological eye couldn’t do and nothing more than that, either. Since Sam was still feeling run down, Regis did his best to appeal to Tuup, to no avail.

“What a piece of shit,” his uncle said.

“Tuup still won’t listen?” Coop was lounging in the stands of the gym, watching while the team trained after a hard session of his own.

“Won’t even humor me.”

“Even knowing it wouldn’t be an advantage?”

“Keeps crying about the integrity of the sport.” Regis sidled up next to him and let out a deep breath. “What a piece of shit.”

“I guess if Skidz didn’t get a pass, there’s no chance of me getting one.”

“Skidz is an asshole, but no, if he can’t, you can’t. That was his argument, just with a lot more zondian cursing.”

“Figured as much. Looks like I’ve gotta go into this one as damaged goods again.” Coop let out a sigh of his own.

“Where’s Sam, anyway? Still feeling like shit?”

“Has an appointment back down on Earth with her doc, spending some time with her sister to see what’s going on with her.” Coop felt her absence for the prior two days, but he understood she had her needs and spending some time with family was good for her.

“Neither of us has really had much to do with family. We don’t work like that, huh?”

“And yet here we are, two street urchins in a facility you own and manage, and me challenging for the Intergalactic Championship again.”

“We don’t always get along too well, though, do we?” Regis prodded.

“Doesn’t matter. That’s just who we are and how we deal. When I needed help, you came with no questions asked and made sure I was taken care of.”

“Didn’t do much good,” Regis said.

“You don’t know that.” The eyepatch itched at the mention of the injury again. “In fact, the doc said if I hadn’t been rushed to him it could have been worse and I’d have no vision in that eye.”

“Yeah, well, if fucking Tuup just let you get an implant...”

“If it’s not happening, then it’s not happening,” he said. “You see why I prefer Ushinatta?”

“Never got the Ushinatta thing, if I’m honest here, kid,” Regis said. “That being said? Sorta seeing some of it now. You could have a goddamned pneumatic robot arm there and nobody would give a shit and let you fight. Humans already have a disadvantage in the arena, they should let up.”

“At least we’re not gelatinous cubes, right?”

“True, there are always those poor suckers. Never had a chance.”

“It put up a decent enough fight, I thought.” Every combatant he’d faced in the arena had its own strengths and weaknesses. Coop was just faster and smarter, or just better at using whatever opportunity arose to his advantage.

“You’re getting soft, you know that?” Regis said it as a joke, but it was something he’d been considering. “What’s next? Settling down and having a family? Could you imagine that? Me, being a great uncle. That’d be something.”

“Who knows? I could see that happening. You’d need to be less of a piece of shit.”

“Oh fuck off. That kid would be spoiled rotten and you know it.”

“Like I was?” Although he didn’t intend for it to have that level of bite, it did. Regis did his best with Coop when he was younger, but had no idea how to deal with a kid who’d just lost his parents and was brimming with rage like Coop. Fighting seemed like the only option either of them understood. At times, Coop imagined taking his love for technology or music and turning that into something, but his hands were built for smashing and not for finesse. It wasn’t Regis’s fault. He did his best.

“We were both in a rough way...”

“I’m just fucking with you,” Coop said. “Who knows where I’d have ended up without my uncle Regis around. You gotta promise me if I have a kid not to be as much of a scumbag as you were when I was a kid.”

“Think I can do that.”

“I’m not worried about it. It’ll work out just fine.”

“Just like this fight will, you’ll see.” Regis slapped Coop’s knee. “I have a feeling about this one. This is gonna be the one where you find what you’re made of.”

“Yeah. Right.”

Regis picked himself up and gave a lazy stretch, plodding down the bleachers and shouting at some trainees. For all intents and purposes, Coop’s training camp for Kriger was done, and he was surprised by how helpful Regis and his boys had been. Granted, he needed to show up in the worst shape he’d been for a while, hat-in-hand and apologize for being an asshole before and instead worked as a resource. Things were changing and Coop couldn’t nail down which way the winds were blowing just yet. Whatever happened in that fight, it almost didn’t matter. One of these kids could pick up where he left off and try to be the first human champion. Coop didn’t need to always be carrying the entire world on his shoulders.

Things were different now, and he wasn’t sure he gave much of a shit about what the world needed. What Coop and his family needed mattered. Still no word from Sam, although he knew waiting for results from the doc could take forever. He shot a message to her, hoping she was feeling better, and that he was thinking of her, something he’d never done before with anyone else, which made him laugh. What a piece of shit he was.