"There he is," Milo sang as I entered the training hall, his arms spread wide as he sauntered my way, 🎶"Mr invincible, Mr unstoppable," 🎶 .
His taunts followed me to the cubby holes where I placed my bag down. Milo then threw on arm around my shoulders 🎶"Mr he's-nothing-but-a-
pussiooooooo🎶.

"Alright," I say, pushing away from him, "that's enough."

"Aw," Milo coos "is someone grumpy today?" I decide to ignore his attempt to annoy me and push his head away that was starting to incroch my personal space from the side.

"You ready to get the shit beaten out of you this fine morning?" He gestures to the sun peeking in through the windows beside us.

I honestly can't be arsed with this, so all I can muster is: "Sure."

~~~

"Whahahahahahaha, hahahahaha." Milo laughs as I take another hook to the ribs.

Milo really needs to shut up.

I am currently in the boxing ring with Gareth, a close friend of my dad's, close enough that I call him my uncle. He's a boxing expert and has been teaching it to all the Agency's recruited for 20 years. Before that, he worked as an Agent alongside my dad but realised he didn't have the nack for that sort of job. However, he still liked working here at the Block, so he became a trainer for the newbies instead. Gareth is highly valued and respected at the Agency as not only is he the one to teach all upcoming recruited ways to win (or atleat survive) a fight but noone has ever beaten him in a fight before. This might be due to his large stature of carved bulky muscle discouraging conflict with him in the first place, but still.

"Hahahaha," Milo cackled on, "you really are shit today, Knight."

Oh gee, I couldn't possibly guess why?

I look up at Uncle Gareth, slowly creating distance between us and waiting for me to raise my gloved hands to initiate the fight back on.

He simply looked at me, not seemingly thinking much, but his eyes changed to utmost focus when my hands were in front of my face again.

Charging at me, he didn't need to do much; just batting my right arm to the side to lay a devastating uppercut to my bruised ribs.

Dropping to my knees, I took ragged breaths as sweat started poring out of me. We were only 5 minutes in, and being this fatigued is not a good sign.

"It wouldn't hurt so much if you had a decent defence." Gareth said above me. I gaze up at him from the ground with a 'no shit' expression. "Or a defence at all"
Ouch.

"Get up." he demanded, not giving me any distance.

It took me a while to get my feet under me before rising unsteadily. One arm was wrapped around my midsection to eliminate some of the pain, but it was of no use as simply breathing put a strain on my chest.

Gareth sighed and raised a hand to crandle the left side of my face. "Be sure to wash that," he advised softly, "and put an ice pack on your jaw." Lowering my head, I nodded, toes curling into the mat beneath me.

"You're done for the day." He stated and gave me a soft smile. I tried returning it, but it felt half-harted. "Go on." He ordered me out of the ring, with a slight mess of my hair.

Milo was leaning against one of the padded corners of the ring when I bent myself out of it. Stepping down, the cold floor was a welcome feeling against the bare soles of my feet.

"Geez Louise, any longer in there, and we'd start thinking you were a masochist."

He thought he was so swag with his unbroken face and unbruised ribs, as this is the only day since we started working at the Agency that he was performing better than me in boxing.

He seemed to think me being better than him at something is an automatic challenge for himself to beat, even though he was better than me at many things. Whilst I was good at brute strength and power, Milo had much better agility and adaptation. He is amazing at mixed martial arts and can street fight like no tomorrow. If Milo was backed into a corner he could flip his legs around, grab onto his opponent some way and could completely flip their positions in an instant, whereas I just stood there and took hits, waiting until I could send a strike myself.

Despite him lacking the ability to read a room, he could damm well read an opponent like... a map? (He doesn't read books). He predicts an opponents attack from slight movement and then taunts them into making mistakes because none of their attacks are landing.

Milo is a worthy asset - it's just a shame he is a massive idiot. He once asked if he could have a brown egg at the canteen because he had only ever eaten white ones. The cook brought over a brown, hard-boiled egg in an egg cup for him, and he smiled like a creep at it. When we sat down to eat, he was upset that his egg was still white.

He thought brown eggs had brown insides.

Milo was so bewildered to learn that all eggs - despite their outside appearance -  had a white inside. He simply could not comprehend how this was possible and had a mini-tantrum after his lifelong dream of eating a brown egg was crushed. In the end, I ate his brown- on- the- outside egg because he was too upset.

The man was 22 at the time.

And here he was now: relashing at my unruly state.
"A pitiful performance," he scorned in a posh voice, turning his nose up, "We expected more from you."

I swiped the towl from his outstretched hand, draping it over my head to block out the light.

"Your turn, Burlona." Gareth called out to him from inside the ring.

"Do you think I could pull out pretty privilege?" Milo turned towards me.

"You'd have to be pretty first."

Proving his maturity, he stuck out his tongue at me before pushing off the ropes.

"The ladies think I'm pretty." He states.

"What ladies?" I chuckle. "Oh right, the ones in your head."

"At least I've got ladies somewhere, unlike you."

"Any day now, Burlona." Gareth booms, now annoyed.

"Dare I ask for luck?" Milo enquires.

"Sure," I say, "what kind?"

At that, he gives me a dreadful expression. "Good luck, preferably."

"Burlona!"

"I'm gonna die" is all I hear as he steps through the ropes into hell.

Authors note - Hi all, a shorter chapter today, but what do we think about Milo?