Loyd walked into the gym as Mark finished getting into his fighting gear. Both stared at each other; a silent conversation taking place.
"You beat me and I'll trade myself away," Mark smiled at Loyd as the spectators started coming into the room.
"If you beat me, I'll promote you to second in command." Loyd took off his jacket and shirt and grabbed his gloves.
"Deal, now then let's see just how much of a man you are." Mark stepped through the particle wall that would hold them inside once the fight started.
"How heavy are the gloves your wearing?" Loyd had noticed that Marks gloves were far larger than normal.
"About twice as heavy as normal gloves. Why, you think I put on brass knuckles?"
"No, I was wondering how much of a handicap to give you." Loyd stepped into the ring and the particle wall solidified behind them.
Mark was smiling, his hands raised. "You're going to die in here."
Loyd easily sidestepped and countered Mark's first punch with a gut shot.
"Too slow, try again."
Mark threw another punch and again Loyd sidestepped and countered.
"I said you were too slow; try again!"
Mark screamed and threw a wild hook at Loyd who ducked under it and planted himself before putting his weight into another gut punch.
"Are you even listening to me?! You're too slow!"
Mark threw up over Loyd's shoulder, missing Loyd, and then tried to grab him. Loyd, expecting this, stepped back to deliver an uppercut. Mark noticed, and stepped back to throw off his aim.
Loyd smiled, "Better, but still too slow."
Loyd threw a hook, hitting Marks's cheek, and Mark staggered backward. Loyd came at him again, delivering an uppercut and sending Mark to the floor, unconscious.
"That was pathetic for the previous first-place pilot. You should be ashamed of yourself. This was a poor excuse for a fistfight. This was a slaughter. We'll be working on this till you can fight better. Until then, consider our bet on hold." Loyd walked through the now disabled particle wall and took off his gloves.
"To anyone saying I cheated, here's my gloves to prove I didn't." He placed his bloody gloves on a table, his punching hand very much broken.
"Now, if you'll excuse me, I've got to get this looked at."
"Overkill much there, bro? I mean you nearly killed the guy." His sister sounded a little worried.
"He deserved it." Loyd was holding his hand gingerly as it started to throb in pain.
"Yeah, but that was pushing it." She looked back at the ring and winced. "You gave him a bloody nose from an uppercut. He may have a concussion."
"Probably wouldn't be that bad if he did have one. Now let's get to the infirmary."
Several medics came running around the corner, ahead of Loyd and his sister, with large med kits on their backs. One stopped in front of Loyd and took his hand.
"What the hell did you punch, kid? I was told there was a fight but you shouldn't have bones sticking out of your hand like this."
"Yeah, I may have gotten carried away but you should've seen the other guy." Loyd laughed as the doctor took his hand, making him wince. "That hurts you know."
"You don't say? Now hold still." The medic took hold of Loyd's fingers and snapped them all back into place at the same time.
Loyd screamed, biting into his other hand from the pain. The medic pulled out a bandage and a spray bottle.
"Your lucky medicine has advanced as far as it has, otherwise you wouldn't be able to pilot anything for the next six weeks."
Loyd just nodded as the medic sprayed the synthetic healing agent on his hand and bandaged it.
"Wow, they never gave me any of that stuff when they cut off my limbs." Loyd's sister was examining the spray bottle. "Bio nanite solution? You mean like the stuff the CTAS use to repair in the field?"
"Something similar, yeah. Damn, that hurt!" Loyd pulled his hand back and flexed his fingers. Every single one of them popped as he wiggled them, making him wince.
"Well, I wouldn't move them too much for the rest of the day but that should be good. Now, if you'll excuse me, the guy who you were fighting is in critical condition." The medic put the rest of her stuff back into her med kit and ran off.
"Come on now, I didn't hit him that hard."
Loyd just looked back at her as she ran around the corner and sighed.
"So, I'm hungry again. Could that be your doing?" Loyd looked at his sister.
"Nope. Not my fault. That's the swarm in you, forcefully healing your injuries. It's causing your body to burn way more calories than it should, to get your extra biomass levels higher." His sister smiled at him flying around. "Although, I am pretty hungry myself."
"So, how do you like your steak?" Loyd was already taking off the bandages as he walked back to the cafeteria.
"I've never tasted anything, unless you shared the taste through our link." She turned to look at him. "So, however you think I would like it, will be fine. I don't know why you're asking me. The armor frame keeps me from eating anything."
"I think we need to meet face to face." Loyd smiled up at her pulling out the document the general had given him. "This piece of paper here, gives me full authority over you. Which means I can change out your armor plates for something a bit more practical and that I don't have to break them to get you to move anymore. The only problem is that your current armor is grafted to your skin so, it would hurt trying to remove it."
He looked back down at the papers "I won't take them off without your permission because I don't want to put you through anything like what you went through at the research base."
Loyd's sister started crying and hugged him. "I want those things off! I don't care how you have to do it or how much it hurts! Those armor plates hurt just being there!" She pulled back and smiled at him. "But I don't think you'll like what you find underneath the facial armor."
Loyd just laughed and kept walking. "Well, you obviously don't know half of what I've seen."
xX Elsewhere in the solar system Xx
"An anomaly has been detected. Begin reviving the Prime Sentience." A gravelly voice could be heard from the sleeping chamber.
"Hurry and awaken the Prime One so that we may seek its judgment on the anomaly and what it might mean."
The creature opened its eyes for the first time in centuries, a trove of knowledge flooding into its mind as it awoke. The waking process took several minutes as many hundreds of swarmlings cut away the massive organ causing the Great Sentience to hibernate. The organ fell away and the mountain of flesh finished waking up.
"Hurry, now you must feed It more."
The swarmlings began grabbing massive piles of flesh and throwing them into a large opening in the side of the mound. The massive head of the Prime Sentience arose from the center of its body and moved closer to the Advisor. Its massive lungs began to pump harder to bring it out of its state of torpor. Massive eyes opened at last, to see the world it had claimed as its feeding ground.
"What is the anomaly you speak of Advisor?" Its deep, gravelly voice made the Advisor tremble.
The Prime Sentience was a collective of over a hundred, trillion different species. Its size alone made it appear like a small continent. Since its massive body was too large to cool with just the air, it had to be submerged in the ocean.
"And why does it worry you so?" Waves spread outward from the Prime Sentience, at every word.
The Advisor moved away from the mouth of the Prime Sentience before speaking. "There is another like you beginning to take form on a distant planet. Several of the swarm have begun to hear its psychic cries and fall to its influence in your absence. Our numbers have also dropped to the point that we cannot move to the next feeding ground. I believe that the only option we have, is to take a step backward and kill this new threat to your omnipotence."
The Prime Sentience knew this discovery was a major issue that could end the swarm for good.
"Then we shall find this new sentient one and devour it." The Great Sentience turned its mind to one of its swarmlings, that was digging something out of the earth, and did its best interpretation of a smile. "And now we have a way to reach them faster."
The Prime Sentience moved more of its tiny pawns, to dig up the old shuttlecraft, so it could load some of its semi-sentient hunter-killers and send them after this new sentient one.