Description: We are not solitary beings. Between us there must be connections. It is the social that defines who we are. And in this place, in this time, Alma and Acacia find a little about what makes the other.
Metal against metal. A grinding sound of abused steel, the scrape of a heavy shutter against the frame. Layers of spray-paint flake off the surface as it slides up over the door. Keys glint in the warm rays of the morning sun, sliding into a series of bulky locks, in turn.
The building isn't too obtrusive from the outside. A building in Metro City, between the urban sprawl and more industrial outskirts - a small warehouse converted to commercial and residential use, a blocky structure of red brick occupying the corner of the street. The windows and doors, though, seem to indicate the place is in disuse - boarded up on ground level, simply shuttered nearer the top. Where the building's facade - such as it is - once bore a sign, that's now just bare mountings and the remains of a board.
It's a side entrance that opens, the renforced door swinging inward. Near perfect darkness lies within, with only a few rays of light coming from the door and through the small gaps left in the windows.
"Mind your step," a voice says, in the darkness.
Its owner moves confidently into the building, heedless of the navigational hazards - the dim shapes and silhouettes of shelves, of canvas tarps, of stacked boxes.
"There's tripwires," she continues.
There's the hint of a smile in her tone...but she doesn't seem to be entirely joking.
She steps into the back, through another door. There's the sound of another lock opening, then the clack of old-fashioned fusebox switches being thrown.
Power and light comes on, florescent tubes glowing as they build to full illumination. The ground floor of the old warehouse looks like it was once a shop of some sort - at least that's what the shelves, racks, and counter at one end would suggest. But they're empty, bare now.
Acacia returns to the main room, looking around critically.
"Hn," she snorts, "been a while since I dusted."
Silently, Alma gazes into the darkness.
It's a bit of a shame the lights weren't on when Acacia mentioned the tripwires, to see the rather unworldly young man hurriedly glance down at what he cannot see and begin to shift his steps with awkward care. But by the time the florescent lights have flickered to life Alma is gazing forward stoically again, subdued, back straight, hands slipped partly into the pockets of his designer jeans. He looks out of place, though he doesn't look like he feels out of place.
Reaching that point is one of the reasons why he came to this city.
Coming to this place in particular was the last.
Alma tilts his chin up to look at the ceiling, elegant profile shifting, looking more like one contemplating the heavens than surveying a dilapedated warehouse.
"Ah-- achoo!"
The sneeze rather spoils the effect, unfortunately.
Sniffing and running the back of his hand below his nose, Alma moves with sedate patience in an effort not to stir up too much dust. He paces around for a little while longer without saying anything, regarding his surroundings before turning, mild-eyed, to Acacia.
"It's an excellent location."
Alma smiles.
"I'm grateful for your willingness to share this."
The language is as vague as his understanding as her reasons. He wants to make sure that he leaves her the opportunity to take her offer back if she needs to; it's a big step, and he's personally flattered she's even considering it. And he hasn't asked too many questions about her reasons. For one, it would probably get personal, and they don't know each other all that well-- and for another, she's so concise he can never understand what she's trying to say /anyway/, so it wouldn't really matter.
At this point, he's just resigned to the difficulties that he perceives will be inherent in their partnership. Alma doesn't know how she feels about it, but...
~ I wonder if she's still stronger than I. ~
The thought arises unbidden. Alma blinks and glances down, distracted. They fought before, of course, as part of the Neo League. But he hasn't felt much urge to clash with her again, as he normally does with fighters with whom he wants to communicate or share. Maybe Acacia's demeanor makes the prospect of combat communication daunting; maybe he's just been too busy to think of it. But here, in a place of hers that he does not understand, he finds himself feeling, oddly, that it's not enough to know so little about her.
It could just be YFCC business, and he could just keep his mouth shut, but-- that not the way Alma works. Everything becomes somehow personal. You have to be strong to live like that, or you just get hurt at the time. Even at its best, maybe it's just self-centered. Alma does his best to make it work, but moreover-- that way of leading has, if anything, become one of the unique characteristics of the YFCC as an organization.
Looking a little hesitant now, Alma looks back up and glances out at the surroundings once again, as though seeing them for the first time.
"How... did you come by this place, Acacia?"
It feels to him like a jab, in a friendly sparring match.
Acacia regards Alma from across the warehouse floor. She tilts her head to one side, giving him an inscrutable look. Unlike the man, she is not one who telegraphs her emotions.
She smiles, all the same, her mouth curving, her expression softening.
When she speaks, her voice is low, soft and slow.
"Dad's," she says, quietly.
She reaches out with one hand, forming her fingers into a fist. She raps her knuckles against one of the old girdered support pillars.
"He bought this place when he 'retired'," she murmurs, with emphasis on the word that indicates said retirement wasn't much of one at all.
Leather draws across painted steel as she withdraws her hand, flexing it at the wrist. She rubs the back of her head, eyes closing.
"I grew up here," she says, with only the faintest hint of a catch in her throat.
Alma pauses, lips parting slightly.
He's silent, for a little while.
Quietly slipping his hands out of his pockets, he approaches Acacia; rather than make eye contact, he examines the pillar that she rapped, as though it held some secret. He turns away, looking back out at the room.
"I had no idea."
Alma's voice is a murmur, and though his face is gentle and calm as ever, his eyes indeed show all: distant, they look past the walls of the place. A brief hesitancy about saying anything about himself in a place that is her own is overcome by the instinctive need to respond to her emotion in kind.
"I've never... been back to where I grew up."
It never seemed important. He carries it with him, what it meant.
Now, he wonders.
"What did your father do?"
He stands there, side by side with the girl, facing in opposite directions.
Acacia looks up.
"He punched people," she says, perfectly straight-faced.
She holds that pose for a second or two, before snorting, a tiny chuckle escaping her throat. She casts her gaze downward, looking at the tops of her boots, at the concrete floor.
"Whether that's a vocation or...a way of life? Don't know."
She seems distant, lost in thought. But she continues speaking, her alto voice clear, mixed wistfulness and bemusement in her tone.
"What do you think?"
Alma, expression unchanging, glances over his shoulder, pausing--
And grins.
The grin subsides, however, as the girl looks down, features reverting as she begins to speak again. The heady feeling returns, the twisting sensation that squeezed and wrung his urge to fight her out of his being before he knew it was there-- the sense that this is important, the same feeling he gets when he fights. Not because this is a fight. Certainly nothing about this moment is a competition. But when you think about fighting as Alma does, when conflict becomes cooperation, then cooperation feels like conflict, and every chance to grow closer to someone is a challenge of strength and accuracy, and reaching out is like a punch...
"No wonder you're so strong."
Again the words arise unbidden like a reflex movement, and again he blinks, this time not out of surprise but slight embarrassment at the odd comment, reaching up to rub the back of his head. His emotions fade quickly.
This is important.
What does he think?
"Punching people is a vocation," he says, sounding as though he speaks more to himself than anything. "Why one punches people is a way of life."
"Ideally," he murmurs after a moment, "I'd think a way of life would become one's vocation." He turns away, still facing away, looking straight ahead again. "What a person does for a living doesn't necessarily tell you much about them. But why they do it... if it's what they wanted, and how they let that show... what they choose to do with what they earn..."
He trails off for a moment.
"A vocation is just contingent, right? Whether fighting or shopkeeping. You take the best that circumstances offer that will allow you to follow what your way of life is-- and what you want it to be. What you need it to be. You can get a different perspective depending on what path you choose. So it says something about you... but it's just contingent..."
He sighs gently, exhaling his thoughts.
"Because if that's not true..."
He looks back over his shoulder at her again, and smiles.
"I've no idea what I'm doing where I am."
Acacia looks at Alma. She arches one eyebrow, her lips curved into an impish smile. She lifts a hand, cocking her thumb towards the entrance.
"You walked in the door," she replies, simply.
She grins as she says it, but there's more to her tone then humour. More to the statement than just the obvious pedantic meaning.
Acaciakeeps her eyes on Alma, holding the look for another moment...before walking past the empty aisles, into the bare space of floor at the front of the store. Beneath the girdered warehouse ceiling, beneath the glare of the lights overhead, she turns towards Alma. Acacia adjusts the velcro straps at the wrists of her fingerless gloves, tightening the padded leather over her hands. Then she shifts her feet, boot soles scraping over the concrete, her legs bending at the knees.
She makes a simple gesture, the message clear.
COMBATSYS: Acacia has started a fight here.
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Acacia 0/-------/-------|
This is crazy, right?
'You walked in the door.'
Alma's eyes widen.
Again, it is not the expression of one surprised or struck by a new revelation; he looks as one who has felt a tremendous rush, the imbiber of a drug that has just taken effect. An observer might understand surprise. But would they understand why when Alma turns to face her, he looks down at his hand, and sees that it is trembling?
Free of emotion, Alma's soul floats, conscious mind above it all for a brief moment even as he feels it fade, and he considers why this makes sense to him.
When she spoke, he almost struck at her spontaneously.
No one who is not a fighter would understand...
The signal, the acceptance, is all he needs, the last of the barriers in the way of his reaching out to her voluntarily taken down. It's an invitation, equivalent, on a more profound level, to letting him in here in the first place.
He is left only with a sense of profound satisfaction before the capacity to reflect graciously steps aside, as though his mind, grown too buoyant, has floated out of his body, and beyond thought now, his right hand thrusts out of its own impetus, seeming almost to drag him along with it towards her.
Wordlessly Alma attacks, scintillating flame surging forth beyond his reach.
COMBATSYS: Alma has joined the fight here.
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Acacia 0/-------/-------|-------\-------\0 Alma
COMBATSYS: Alma successfully hits Acacia with Self Expression.
[ \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\ < > ///////////////////////////// ]
Acacia 0/-------/----===|=------\-------\0 Alma
Acacia's mouth widens, just a little, as the flame flashes into her. Driven by the force of Alma's soul. She gives a small hiss of breath, lifting her arm to shield her face against the energies - but to little avail. They wash over her, forcing her to stumble.
Quickly, though, her balance recovers.
"First step," she says, smirking, her eyes alight.
Even as she speaks, her own right hand tightens into a fist, nails biting into the leather covering her palm, material tightening over her knuckles. Muscles tense as she draws her arm back, bending at the shoulder. Then she sends her fist rushing for Alma, swinging it with not just her limb but her entire body, rotating at the waist.
"GOOD!"
COMBATSYS: Alma blocks Acacia's Strong Punch.
[ \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\ < > /////////////////////////// ]
Acacia 0/-------/----===|==-----\-------\0 Alma
Alma has seized his chance, in more ways than one. This won't make things easier. They can't communicate everything through fighting. They're going to continue to be very different people, no matter how much they learn about one another. But it doesn't matter. He joined her-- did he reach out, or did she? It's impossible to tell right now. Maybe they both reached out together. But here they are, and she has given him his chance to prove himself, and prove that he wants a piece of her.
As it were.
"Ha!"
Eyes equally bright, Alma grins as he brings his arms up to parry her powerful blow, wincing with one eye but allowing it to glance away from his body, still grinning all the while. The grin doesn't touch his face completely; somehow, passion and calm are both present there, an incredible focus that comes only from being completely lost in the moment. He's there and gone--
And there again, exploding with inprecedented energy as he weaves in and jumps, twisting back and lashing out with a series of kicks as he rises. The soulfire forms a halo around him as he spins upward, attempting to force his way through Acacia's guard and persist in an unrelenting assault against the boundaries that continue to separate them.
It's impossible, right? People are discontinuous. Whether we're considered to be 'trapped' by our bodies, they do separate us, and in some important sense, we live and die alone. But there are moments, Alma knows, where that, while it does not cease to exist, ceases to matter. Those moments are precious precisely because of those limits, and to share it with another is to join with them forever, the shared moment crystallized in time.
Now that he has his chance...
"Urrryaaaaahhhh!"
He won't let it go!
COMBATSYS: Acacia interrupts Rising Fury from Alma with Unyielding Stance.
[ \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\ < > ////////////////////// ]
Acacia 0/-------/----===|====---\-------\0 Alma
A moment in time...
She hangs suspended in space, propelled skyward by the incredible force of Alma's kicks. The light from his soul-forged fire casts an ethereal illumination over Acacia's form, reflecting off her silver hair. Her jacket whips in the wind, stirred by the sudden breeze caused by the sheer displacement of air.
She's airborne, now, her back to the warehouse ceiling, driven upwards by the repeated unceasing impacts.
She hangs there.
A moment.
Her eyes, though, are open. Focused. Her mouth is set, her expression...there is no pain, no fury, no alarm. There is only intent.
Philosophers may speak of the universal.
But for the fighter...
...there is the temporal.
Here and /now/, then, a familiar surge of chi rushes through Acacia's body. Here, in this place, it comes easily to her. Spiritual power racing through her body, renforcing bone, sinew, muscle.
The kicks slam home, but they do not bend or break her. She does not yield beneath the assault. And as the last kick flies home, as Alma's heel races for her form...she extends an arm. She -catches- it, her fingers closing round his foot - her palm slamming into his leg with more force than any simple block.
It's not enough.
Alma's mighty passion clashes against Acacia's iron-clad resolve, and all he can think as pain explodes up his still flame-sheathed leg...
"Hnnrh!"
...is that he's found a worthy opponent.
Skidding away, accepting that his momentum is halted for now by his uncrushable opponent. She's like a wall-- no, like a castle. Sun Tzu would say this is the worst kind of battle-- but that's only true if what you need is to win. Alma wants to win, yes, but that's not what he needs. Winning is...
...contingent.
A vocation, you might say, rather than a way of life.
If he's going to batter down these gates, he'll need everything he has.
Shuddering, only his eyes afire now, Alma straightens and stands strong, arms shaking as the flames become light and the light grows, breathing deep of the air of Acacia's past. He can feel her power, rooted here.
He will use it against her.
He will come to know it himself.
There is a steady pulse in the light rising around him, like a heartbeat...
COMBATSYS: Alma gathers his will.
[ \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\ < > /////////////////////// ]
Acacia 0/-------/----===|=======\-------\1 Alma
Across from Alma, Acacia lands, touching down on the concrete ground, her legs bending to absorb the impact. One hand rests against the floor, just long enough for her to catch her balance. before she rises.
The spiritual energies blaze bright around Alma, nearly enough to eclipse that cast by the lamps overhead. Yet Acacia stares, unflinching, into the light. Acacia isn't sensitive to his kind of power. But she knows it for what it is.
So.
She extends her hand, forming it once more into a fist.
It's been a long time since she's fought in here, in this old building.
Almost like coming home, one might say.
She grins at the thought.
Literally.
She moves, then, even as her own power erupts from her arm, waves of concussive force spilling off her muscles, smashing through the air with a shriek and rumble. She races at Alma, with one chi-charged blow...
COMBATSYS: Alma interrupts Mass Driver from Acacia with Divine Intervention EX.
[ \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\ < > ////////////////// ]
Acacia 0/-------/=======|=======\-------\0 Alma
Alma closes his eyes.
A ram. A ram, to open the gates.
He can feel her now, feel her power.
It's here, all around him, so he knows now.
He can feel her close to him.
This is her home, but she has let him in. He has no gift to offer but himself. The proof of his character. He will risk anything and everything.
He will make this moment count!
Alma opens his eyes.
And slamming the strike aside with a mighty sweep of his right arm, he brings his left hand up to the girl's forehead. The residual force of her blow is far more than any block of his can contain, and the very floor splinters slightly beneath him as he is lifted off the ground-- but in this moment time seems to slow, and as the dust flies around them like a battleground, Alma strikes.
Fate has given him his chance.
Offering up the glory of this battle unto her, a beam of light seems to pierce through her very skull, searing sensations of hope and love and tragedy overcome blurring into a psyche-shaking torrent of emotion, and then it is done, as Alma is blown off his feet and sent rolling back into the dust.
A soft moan slips from Acacia. She lies sprawled at the foot of the far wall, her head lolling, eyes glassy. Then she rubs her face, fingers splayed. She grounds one knee on the floor, then the sole of a heavy combat boot. Leaning against the wall, she pulls herself upright. Or something close to upright, at least, swaying unsteadily.
Her breath comes in short intermittent gasps.
Then she inhales, once, holding it in her lungs...before releasing it all at once.
Her eyes open.
She turns to Alma, her expression unreadable.
Then she smiles, wanly.
"And," she says, "how do /you/ feel?"
COMBATSYS: Acacia focuses on her next action.
[ \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\ < > ////////////////// ]
Acacia 0/-------/=======|=======\-------\0 Alma
A bead of sweat traces the fine lines of Alma's cheek.
Eyes glittering, face calm, lips parted, he looks like nothing less than a religious supplicant, one basking in the awe of the divine.
He swallows once, quietly, and his lips tremble for a moment before light streams forth between his fingers, sparkling through the dust as a ball of white flame rises silently up from his hand.
"Great!"
Youthful earnestness and warm, appreciative satisfaction mingle in his voice-- and indeed, in his hand, the white fire exploding into bright colors, pinks and purples, as soon as he speaks that word.
He thrusts out, a spinning gout of flame emerging.
"Hnn!"
Another bead of sweat trickles down, but he just cannot stop.
COMBATSYS: Acacia interrupts Sacred Wave from Alma with Ground Effect.
[ \\\\\\\\\\\\\\ < > //////////// ]
Acacia 1/------=/=======|=======\===----\1 Alma
One heartbeat. Two.
Acacia watches the swirl of flame as it speeds towards her, crossing the distance separating them.
Fast.
But this time, at least...
...she's faster.
Motes of dust lift from the ground, stirred by an invisible force. An immense pressure radiating in a circle around Acacia's feet, spreading out on a horizontal plane. A moment, that's all it takes, as the power builds.
Then.
/Release/.
Acacia -blasts- off the ground, taking off like a human rocket, exploding forth upon a surge of concussive energies. The pulse of released chi crashes into the tough concrete floor, the trailing edge of the wave crashing against the steel structural girders round the walls and roof, a sonorous BOOM radiating through the old warehouse building.
And Acacia drives right /through/ the incoming fire, passing out of the maelstrom, her fist flashing to Alma's gut.
The roles are not so simple.
"Nn...nnghh..."
It's not just Alma's passion against Acacia's resilience. Her initiative is unprecedented, barreling through Alma's strike to slam her fist into his abdomen, the boom that echoes throughout the building mirroring the trauma that shudders through his body. No, he is not the only one with a violent passion here.
"..gg...gghh..."
And she is not the only one with indomitable resilience.
Trembling, the floor damaged around his feet with the force it has absorbed, Alma has not budged an inch. Wincing, teeth grit, normally composed features twisted with his mighty effort, the tall young man looks past his opponent, over her shoulder, as they rest against each other in this short moment, her fist seeming buried within him. It's a bizarre embrace--
"Rrrrrh..."
--and Alma completes it by attempting to grasp her by the shoulders.
COMBATSYS: Alma successfully hits Acacia with Full Confession.
- Power hit! -
[ \\\\ < > /////////// ]
Acacia 1/-======/=======|===----\-------\0 Alma
"...HHRRRRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHH!"
And grasping her by the shoulders, Alma tilts his head back and cries out to the heavens, roaring in defiance, in exultation, consumed by the glory of the moment-- and hurls her into the air, straight up above him.
Still shouting that one long cry, Alma spreads his arms as though to embrace the world, power coursing through his very veins as he shuts his eyes and opens them again, revealing now only bright pure Soul Power where his eyes had been.
And a geyser of power explodes up from the ground before him, raging up mere inches from his face, conjured up by the intensity of his fury and the sincerity of his passion, to engulf entirely the girl and, suspending her in midair with its force, pour all of its might into her small body.
Light, a butterfly. A smiling man and woman, the shadow cast by a welcoming tree. A single tear, and reflected within it too many images to count, too many sights to see, and plunging through them all, moving faster and faster into the liquid depths until those many moments become a blur, now the blur of the pink and purple and white lights that rage around her, seeming to extend off into infinity, there, there is Alma, another Alma, a different Alma, smiling shyly.
For a moment the pain of the attack seems to fade, and the young man there, eyes shining, reaches out his hand towards her, palm open, empty now of things to offer.
Rattling out a gasp of exhaustion and ecstasy, the Alma below falls to his knees, and the light fades, casting the girl adrift again.
Acacia lies on her side, wisps of dissipating spiritual power swirling round her fallen form. She shudders, a shiver running through her lean frame, muscles spasming, her nerves afire. She clenches both her fists, fighting for breath, as the last of the torrent fades. She inhales, exhales, gasping each mouthful of air, struggling to restore the lost balance.
Finally, she sits up, pushing herself up on one elbow. She looks at Alma, through a blurred haze of vision.
"What," she says, "was -that-?"
COMBATSYS: Acacia has left the fight here.
[ \\\\\\\\\\\ <
Alma 0/-------/----===|
Panting heavily, one eye half-shut in a perpetual wince of fatigue, the handsome young man looks slowly over to the fallen girl, remaining on his knees. As though his faculties are only just returning to him, it seems to take a moment for her question to register.
But when it does...
"That's me."
...a slow smile warms his eyes again.
"Nice to meet you."
His smile widens yet still, until reaching up to rub the back of his head through his hair with modest, self-effacing good humor, Alma cannot but begin to laugh.
COMBATSYS: Alma has ended the fight here.
Acacia just /stares/ at him for a good long moment, her eyebrows creeping halfway to her hairline. She looks at him in wide-eyed disbelief, her mouth opening, then closing. She blinks, blinks again...
...and then, a small sound escapes from the back of her throat.
It's tiny, faint, but it grows. It's infectious. She laughs, doubling over, wiping her eyes with the back of her hand. She laughs until she's out of breath, a rare thing for Acacia.
"Well," she says, when she finally recovers.
She sits back up, stretching out her hand.
"Come here often?"
Shifting forward on his knees through the dust, Alma, smiling, reaches out to take her hand, gently, firmly, clasping it in his.
"I'd like to."
Log created on 14:23:41 11/28/2007 by Acacia, and last modified on 19:11:13 12/02/2007.