i'm a goddess of vicious precision

[autokinetic]

Because there are so many fewer diversions on this station than on the previous one, Aegis takes to those that are offered with more of an open mind than she might have done before. For instance, she stays after personal combat sometimes, to watch Sue sparring with Howlett. Now and then she takes a turn herself. Today she's just supervising.

Comments

[autokinetic]

Why not Howlett, could you tell him if I was there, could you back me up if I told him - he wouldn't pull that crap, he gets you -

[pythbox]

He cries harder.

I couldn't, I just couldn't. It would hurt too much to know he knew.

[autokinetic]

She squeezes him. Then - then I'll stick by you, we can get him together, she says, like that last time, you and me.

[pythbox]

He sniffles into her shoulder.

Maybe, he says, unconvinced. I don't know. I'm afraid.

He doesn't specify of what.

[autokinetic]

I want to find something to do that you're not scared of, but I don't know if there is something like that.

[pythbox]

I'm afraid he'll hurt you too.

[autokinetic]

I - Well, she has no clever response to that. Now that he mentions it, she's scared too. But. He might do that anyway, just because I'm your friend.

[pythbox]

...And now he's crying again.

[autokinetic]

And I'd tell, anyway, I'd tell until someone listened, and then he'd get iced.

[pythbox]

This is a strangely appealing prospect. Except.

I still don't want you getting hurt like that.

Underlying the words: it makes sense for shit like this to happen to Sue. Sue is already twisted. Aegis is beautiful and perfect and any world where she gets hurt is a wrong world.

[autokinetic]

You shouldn't be getting hurt either. The world's wrong in a billion ways and that's one of them and if I can stop it I want to. I'll do it without getting hurt if I can, though.

[pythbox]

Yep. Crying.

[autokinetic]

Hugs. This isn't something urgent to figure out on a scale of right now; the creep can't get into their room.

(Unless he can, unless he can fool the palm scanner, but then they'll have to go with trying to beat him up anyway and any elaborate plan will be moot.)

[pythbox]

Aegis is such a good friend. Sue never wants anything bad to happen to her, ever ever ever. He pushes that; it seems important.

[autokinetic]

I agree with you. Except it doesn't make it okay for bad things to happen to you either. I wouldn't be such a good friend if I thought so, e?

[pythbox]

He laughs softly. E.

[autokinetic]

Hugs are good. Hugs help even when they don't. You got a better idea than cornering him with me there and kicking the kuso out of him?

[pythbox]

Nope.

[autokinetic]

There's a scratching sound and a series of beeps at their door.

Aegis sits up.

The door slides open.

It's a familiar face. Hello, Sue's new best friend.

"Hiding in your room? What, forever, Tommy?" asks Sue's new best friend. "Not very sociable of you."

(Sue's name is, alas, not hard to find. The teachers will use a nickname simply because that's the only way for them to get him to respond, but "Thomas Chester Sanderson" goes on being stamped into every official record.)

Aegis stands in one fluid motion.

[pythbox]

Sue freezes.

[autokinetic]

birbirdbird going to need some help, here says Aegis, dropping into a ready position. "Get out of our room," she says.

Sue's new best friend touches the panel on the wall that closes the door, and it slides shut. "Mm," he says, "no."

[pythbox]

He links her, but he doesn't move—he can't move—all he sends is fear, soft quiet mouselike fear.

[autokinetic]

Sue - Sue, if he can take you by himself, I don't know if I can take him alone -

Sue's new friend moves fast.

Sue's old friend moves faster, but she is not as strong, she is not a speed-mutant but only an efficient user of her limbs, and either this guy knows how her exo works or he's lucky, because after a lot of dodging has gone on and she's gotten one admittedly solid hit to his gut, he clips her across the ear and sends her head careening into the edge of her bunk and her motor cortex goes screwy; it's like she seizes, twitching all her muscles at independent random, and then she falls to the floor like a rag doll. Like a twelve-year-old girl.

"I like how you're all cooperative," says Sue's new best friend, nudging Aegis with his foot and getting a half-conscious groan in response. "She thought she was being helpful, maybe but you know you don't mind if I come in to visit you whenever I like."

[pythbox]

It's a nightmare, a living nightmare, all of the worst things that could possibly happen, worse than dying, almost worse than going home.

But—how'd he forget this so fast?—he used to live a nightmare as bad as this one.

Sue chooses to stop caring that he is afraid.

He uncoils from his tense stillness and launches himself into the older boy, fast enough that the force of impact slams him against the door.

[autokinetic]

"Oh, you want it rough today," is the response, and the fight is on. Sue's new best friend is barely hampered by the hit he took to his stomach, and he's confident, not scared, he's beaten Sue before.