Chapter 2: Establishing Roots
Three days of job hunting in the Glades had taught Ben that credentials meant nothing here. College degrees, certifications, previous work experience—none of it mattered when you were talking to people who measured worth in simpler terms: Can you do the job? Can you be trusted? Will you run when things get ugly?
The Glades didn't have room for anyone who couldn't prove their value immediately.
Ben stood outside Marcus's gym at eight in the morning, watching through smeared windows as a handful of early risers worked the heavy bags with the methodical desperation of people preparing for war. The building looked like it had been fighting its own battle for years—brick facade stained with decades of city grime, neon sign flickering between "Open" and "Op n," metal security grates that had been bent and repaired so many times they looked like abstract art.
Sin wasn't lying about this place needing help.
The bell above the door wheezed when he entered, barely audible over the rhythmic thudding of fists against leather. The smell hit him immediately: sweat, disinfectant, and something indefinable that spoke of people pushing their bodies past breaking points because they had no other choice.
"You Marcus?" Ben asked the man behind the front desk.
The guy looked up from a ledger book filled with angry red numbers. Marcus was maybe forty-five, built like a tree trunk that had survived too many storms. His nose had been broken more than once, and a scar ran from his left ear to the corner of his mouth. But his eyes were sharp, intelligent, sizing Ben up with the casual competence of someone who'd learned to read people as a survival skill.
"Depends who's asking."
"Sin said you might need someone to teach self-defense."
Marcus snorted. "Sin, huh? That kid's got opinions about everyone." He set down his pen and stood, rolling shoulders that looked like they could carry a small car. "What makes you think you can teach anything worth learning?"
"I know how to fight."
"So does everyone who walks through that door, son. Question is, do you know how to teach people who ain't naturally good at it? Single moms working two jobs who just want to get home safe? Kids who think knowing karate makes them bulletproof?" Marcus gestured at the gym around them. "This isn't about winning tournaments. It's about surviving Tuesday night."
Ben felt the weight of memories he couldn't share. "I know the difference between fighting for sport and fighting to protect people."
Something in his voice must have registered, because Marcus's expression shifted slightly. "Show me."
The sparring area was a raised platform surrounded by rope, probably salvaged from an actual boxing ring decades ago. Marcus wrapped his hands with the efficiency of long practice and nodded for Ben to do the same.
"Fair warning," Marcus said as he stepped onto the platform. "I don't pull punches. Not in here. You want this job, you prove you can handle what these people are going to face out there."
Ben nodded, settling into a fighting stance that felt as natural as breathing. In his previous life, he'd started learning martial arts after the first time he'd been mugged. Karate, then boxing, then jiu-jitsu, then whatever else he could find instructors for. The fear of being helpless again had driven him to obsession.
Now, in this younger, stronger body, all that training felt like it had been waiting for this moment.
Marcus came in fast, testing with a quick jab that Ben slipped by inches. The older man's eyes sharpened—that had been a real punch, not some gentle tap, and Ben had avoided it cleanly.
"Good reflexes," Marcus said, then threw a combination that would have flattened most people.
Ben moved like water, deflecting what he couldn't dodge, finding openings that his muscle memory exploited without conscious thought. When Marcus overextended on a hook, Ben could have landed a devastating counter, but instead he just tapped the man's ribs to show he'd seen the opportunity.
Marcus stepped back, breathing hard. "Okay. You can fight. Question is, can you teach someone who can't?"
"Give me someone to demonstrate with."
Marcus grinned and called over a woman who'd been working the speed bag. She was maybe thirty, wearing workout clothes that had seen better days, with the kind of lean muscle that came from physical labor rather than gym time.
"Lisa, come here. This guy thinks he can teach you something useful."
Lisa looked skeptical. "I already know how to throw a punch."
"Show me," Ben said.
She squared up and threw what she probably thought was a proper cross. It was all arm, no hip rotation, telegraph enough to send a letter. Against a trained fighter, it would have been useless.
Against a drunk grabbing her in a parking lot, it might be enough.
"Not bad," Ben said, which earned him a surprised look from Marcus. "But let me show you something that'll work better."
He spent the next twenty minutes breaking down practical techniques—how to use an attacker's momentum against them, where to aim to cause maximum damage with minimum effort, how to break free from common grabs and holds. Nothing fancy, nothing that required years of training. Just dirty, effective moves designed for people who needed to get away from trouble, not win fights.
When they finished, Lisa was nodding with the kind of fierce attention that spoke of someone who'd needed these skills before.
"That actually makes sense," she said. "Most places teach you all this fancy stuff that you'd never remember when someone's actually trying to hurt you."
Marcus was watching Ben with new respect. "Where'd you learn to teach like that?"
From watching too many people get hurt because they thought they knew how to defend themselves. From years of obsessing over every martial art I could find because I was terrified of being helpless again. From dying because even all that training wasn't enough to save everyone.
"Experience," Ben said simply.
Marcus nodded slowly. "Job's yours if you want it. Pay's not great, but it's steady. Mostly you'd be running beginner classes—people who've never thrown a punch, people who think they know more than they do, kids who need to learn the difference between confidence and stupidity."
Ben looked around the gym, taking in the mixture of hope and desperation on the faces around him. These were people who lived in the shadow of violence, who'd learned that the police might not come and that sometimes the only person who could protect you was yourself.
In a few months, Malcolm Merlyn's earthquake would hit. Buildings would collapse, infrastructure would fail, and chaos would reign. The people who survived would be the ones who could adapt, who could protect themselves and their families when everything fell apart.
"I'll take it," Ben said.
Three hours later, Ben stood in front of his first official class, looking out at twenty faces that represented a cross-section of the Glades' humanity. Single mothers, working poor, teenagers who'd learned too young that the world was dangerous. And there, in the back corner with her arms crossed and expression skeptical, was Sin.
"Most self-defense classes teach you how to fight," Ben began. "This one's different. I'm going to teach you how to survive."
A woman in her thirties raised her hand. "What's the difference?"
"Fighting is about winning. Survival is about getting home safe." Ben gestured to the mats around them. "Anyone can learn to throw a punch. What I want to teach you is how to think like the kind of person who hurts other people, so you can spot danger before it spots you."
"This is bigger than just teaching them to fight. These people are going to need every advantage they can get when Malcolm's plan comes to fruition. If I can't warn them directly, maybe I can prepare them indirectly. Make them harder to kill."
He started with awareness—how to read a room, how to identify exits, how to trust the little voice that said something was wrong. Most people ignored their instincts until it was too late. In the Glades, that kind of mistake got you killed.
"Your gut knows things your brain doesn't," Ben explained as he had them practice scanning their environment. "If something feels off, it probably is. Don't talk yourself out of caution because you're worried about being rude."
Sin was watching him with sharp interest now, her skepticism shifting to something that might have been approval.
They moved on to basic techniques—how to break free from grabs, how to use everyday objects as weapons, how to create distance and opportunities to escape. Ben emphasized that the goal was never to win a fight, but to create enough chaos and pain to get away.
"Will this work against someone with a gun?" asked an older man whose hands shook slightly when he spoke.
The question hit Ben like a physical blow. In his previous life, all his training hadn't been enough against a collapsing building. Here, in a city where people regularly brought handguns to muggings, how much good could martial arts really do?
"It won't stop a bullet. It won't prevent an earthquake. But maybe it'll give them a chance. Maybe it'll mean the difference between dying immediately and living long enough for help to arrive."
"Honest answer?" Ben said. "Probably not. If someone has a gun and they want you dead, there's not much any of us can do about that. But most people with guns aren't professional killers. They're scared, high, desperate. They want your wallet, not your life. And sometimes, knowing how to move, how to think, how to spot trouble before it escalates—sometimes that's enough to change the equation."
It wasn't the reassuring answer they'd been hoping for, but it was true. The Glades didn't have room for comfortable lies.
After the class ended and the students filtered out into the evening gloom, Ben found himself alone with his thoughts and the weight of everything he couldn't say. He pulled out a map of the Glades and spread it across the small desk in the corner office Marcus had given him to use.
There. His finger traced a path to an area of abandoned warehouses and empty lots. According to the show, that's where Malcolm had hidden the earthquake device. Right now, it was probably already in place, waiting for its moment to tear the neighborhood apart.
He could try to find it, try to dig it up or disable it somehow. But that would take resources he didn't have, skills he wasn't sure he possessed, and access to areas that were probably guarded. Worse, it would risk tipping off Malcolm's people that someone knew about the plan.
"The curse prevents me from warning people directly, but what about indirectly? What if I start a journal, write down everything I know in code? Maybe future me will understand what present me can't say clearly."
Ben pulled out a notebook and started writing, testing the boundaries of whatever cosmic gag order was controlling his ability to communicate future knowledge.
M.M. underground project, seismic disruption potential came out as M.M. underground project, banana hammock potential.
Device location: warehouse district became Device location: disco ball district.
But People should practice emergency preparedness stayed exactly as he'd written it.
Building evacuation procedures remained unchanged.
Community organization against disasters was fine.
The pattern became clear after an hour of testing. He couldn't communicate specific future events or identify particular individuals as threats. But general advice, preparedness suggestions, community building—all of that was apparently allowed.
"I can't tell them Malcolm Merlyn is planning to earthquake the Glades on a specific date. But I can suggest that people should have emergency kits, evacuation plans, community networks. I can make them stronger without explicitly telling them why they need to be strong."
It wasn't enough. It would never be enough. Thousands of people were going to die, and he was reduced to teaching self-defense classes and hoping that a few dozen better-prepared families would somehow tip the scales.
But it was a start.
Ben locked the notebook in the desk drawer and gathered his things. Outside, the Glades hummed with its usual mixture of desperation and defiance. Sirens wailed in the distance, but closer to the gym, he could see some of his students walking home with their heads up and eyes alert, putting into practice what they'd learned about situational awareness.
Oliver Queen returns in two months and thirteen days. The Undertaking happens in approximately seven months. I have that long to build whatever network I can, to prepare whoever will listen, to find some way to save people without being able to tell them what they need to be saved from.
The television shows had made it look simple—heroes showed up, fought the bad guys, saved the day. But the reality was messier, more complex. The reality was teaching scared people to throw better punches and hoping it would be enough to keep them alive when their world fell apart.
Ben walked home through streets that would soon become a battleground, past buildings that would collapse, through communities that would be torn apart by forces beyond their control. But for now, they were alive, resilient, preparing for troubles they couldn't yet imagine.
And maybe, just maybe, that preparation would be enough to change everything.
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