Welcome to Gaia! ::

Small risks, Quartz told himself, were the only ones worth taking. Small risks consisted of choices he could make that, while not necessarily the choices his General would've made, were also not ones that countermanded her orders. Small risks were the ones that weren't likely to get him into trouble -- and though they tended to make fear prickle up his spine, they had an almost irresistible allure, as long as she wasn't standing directly there in all her horrific glory.

Interfering with Zircon on this young girl's behalf had been, in the end, a calculated risk, and one he'd judged small. There was certainly a chance that at some point, Zircon might ask General Schörl why it was she'd sent Quartz to fetch the other young captain, and discover there had never been any such orders. On the other hand, there was possibility that Zircon might feel some sense of shame about harming a child -- and of her own rank -- and wouldn't want to bring it up whether or not she thought Quartz had falsely invoked Schörl's name or not. Beyond that, he decided that, even if all this got back to Schörl, she might just as well leave Zircon to handle it herself. Zircon, unlike Schörl, seemed a shade mousy and more than a little high-strung, and he doubted he had much to fear from her by comparison.

In conclusion, a calculated risk, hopefully tiny. And all he was doing was breaking up an equal-rank squabble, restoring peace and equilibrium. And taking the younger captain aside for what could only be lauded as improving her skills. He could make a passable argument for why he shouldn't be in trouble.

"Out of this hellhole, so we can talk," he rattled off, strides mid-length and even -- then paused when he noticed the sound of her own footfalls dropping slowly, unevenly, farther behind. Quartz pivoted in a fairly smooth motion and bent to lift the captain up in a princess carry. "Up we go, pink elephant on parade. How's the ankle?"

She was just a child. Good God, she really was just a child -- confused and scared and the Negaverse had dragged her into their bullshit. Was she a freshman in high school, still getting used to having to change classes every forty-five minutes, forgetting her locker combination? Or maybe not even that -- she seemed so young -- maybe still in junior high, puzzling over simple Home Ec recipes and giggling when a classmate mispronounces 'organism' in Life Science? Did the Negaverse really stoop so low as to pluck a kid out of her adolescence and rank her a captain in their army, and send her off to fight and kill and die?

Yes. Unfortunately, they did.

"You've thanked me more than enough," he promised, waltz-stepping in a little circle to effectively spin her in the air before continuing on. It was cheerful, meant to lighten her spirits a little bit, and it didn't really occur to him that he'd done it.

What could he say, though, to her supposition that she should've teleported away and avoided all this? Yes, you should. You were weak, and it cost you. People like you and I are weak. We don't deserve what we can't earn. It was your fault you got hurt, because you couldn't avoid it.

That was all true. He just didn't want to say it to her. She was just a kid.

"This world is shitty," he agreed, not very reassuringly. "Not just for the people they've got locked up. People like you, too -- you need to be able to take care of yourself. Do they train you in self-defense?"

They were out of the funhouse and crossing a parking lot now, heading to a different part of the fair grounds, a building labeled House of Freaks on a falling-down, clapboard sign. This had either been a very old or a very controversial carnival. Right now, though, it was a very empty carnival, and that was what mattered. No one to see him failing to deliver Captain Carnation to General Schörl.

"It used to be white," he said in response to her compliment. He could feel the light dotting of her finger against the bandolier sash that crossed his breast. There'd been stars there, once: now every single one was broken, reformed into the phases of a solar eclipse. Stars muted, muffled, suffocated. "This is a little easier on the grass stains."

Her description of the self-defense lessons she'd gotten -- a little -- didn't inspire much confidence or suggest much of an organized training regimen. Where Quartz had had Schörl and her ideas of how to make a soldier, it seemed kids like this one were being left to some sort of slapshod patchwork of combat training -- all but useless to them if they met someone in the field who knew how to fight. Or if another, older, more experienced captain suddenly decided to administer a frustrated a**-whooping.

"I'm afraid that sounds like half bullshit and half theory," he told her flatly, setting the captain carefully down to her feet once they'd arrived outside the dark building. The moon was bright and still streaming through the punched out old windows: they'd be able to see inside without much trouble. "Avoiding getting hit's an awesome idea, but sooner or later you're going to get into fights, with assholes like that for example, and what you need are basic ideas so simple you can fall back on them even if you panic. You always want to start with those before you get into any crazy martial arts. I'll give you some basics, but you should find a self-defense class you can enroll in. Ankle still bothering you?"

It was so strange to meet someone who didn't behave like Stroud and her equally ******** insane friends -- someone who had normal human person feelings that made sense to, oh, anybody with a soul (or at least anybody who could still remember having had one). It was strange, and God, he'd missed it, he'd missed not being afraid of another human so badly -- and if it turned out she wasn't one either, she was another of Schörl's tests, he was fairly certain she'd win this round, because he might cry --

But Quartz needed too badly for this sweet-faced kid to really just be a sweet-faced kid. It was stupid and unwise to trust in that, but he was desperate and there hadn't been any sympathy from anyone in all his memory, and he so wanted to still believe that human kindness existed, even if he rarely saw it anymore, couldn't remember its face.

Schörl could not possibly turn every single person in the world evil, after all.

(Can't I, pet? he could practically hear her voice in his head, and shivered, and tried to ignore it.)

"Hush, don't cry for me," he soothed without much thought, bringing up one of his trailing silk scarves to wipe her distressed red face in the event of tears. "This world is terrible, and bad things happen to people who can't take care of themselves all the time. You've got to worry about taking care of yourself, Strawberry Shortcake. People like Captain Zircon back there will s**t all over you for as long as they can get away with it. That's how things work around here. Anyway," he led them inside the building -- not far, just out of street view, to where moonlight filtered in through the broken front windows and lit on a sturdy-looking chair. "You don't have to do any fighting today. Here, have a seat, and we'll adapt. You get to beat me up a little without ever getting off your duff, you'll see."

Quartz nodded, because that was a simple desire, and he could understand it. She wanted not to be weak, not to be s**t on for the rest of her life by all the assholes of the world -- but right now she couldn't stop people from treating her poorly, because she was nothing and no one. They were the same in that way, him and this lost teenager -- and if there had been a time in his life when that would've embarrassed him as a grown man, at least the blessing of his amnesia was that he couldn't remember it. Inside Metallia's system, he was as much a slave as she was.

"Alright," he allowed, stepping back two paces and falling into a kickboxing stance, bouncing in place a little, fists held loose in position by his head. "So we'll fight, then. Go ahead and try to hit me."

Sparring with Stroud -- much less Schörl -- was nothing like sparring with a beginner. This was familiar territory, and by contrast, perfectly easy. In this case, the main advantage his opponent had on him was a captain's speed compared to a lieutenant's. Injured, though, and telegraphing her attack by both sight and sound, the dodge was easy enough to perform, leaning back and ducking down from her strike to move out of the way and let her fist fly past his head.

Without a proper stance, the enthusiasm of her punch was all set to work against her here, momentum bound to drag her forward and off-balance. Mindful of her already-injured ankle, Quartz stepped in towards her instead of away, loosening his fist into an open-handed attempt to lightly catch her around her middle and hopefully set her back on her feet.

"Alright, so you missed," he was saying, not concerned at all that she had. "The first lesson is footwork -- we need to get you a good fighting stance so you can float like a proper butterfly. So let's talk about what just went on there. What happened when you tried to punch me? Not a trick question." Then, a better question, in afterthought: "What's your name, Captain?"

"It's very pretty, Captain," he agreed. "Like the name of a flower. It suits you." He wanted to bolster her confidence, not cut it -- being a beginner at anything could be intimidating, and wouldn't help.

"You did miss. But that's because I made you miss. You can do that too -- but it helps not to be standing stock-still if you want to be able to avoid taking hits while you're dishing them out. That stance is a good start," he said approvingly of her attempt to match his footing, "but I'm going to tweak it a little and I'll explain what it's for as I go."

He circled around, coming to stand next to her, and fell into a stance that matched Astrophyllite's. "So now I'm you," he said. "One foot back, one forward -- that's good, helps you keep your balance if you take a hit. I want you to turn your feet, though. Square them out a little more, match my angle. Better! So. Here's what happens when you stand like that." He came back around in front, facing her fighting stance and squaring off against it with his own. "If you're facing me head on, I've got a big advantage -- I've got this nice broad target shoulder to shoulder, so it's hard to miss. But because you're turned at an angle now, you've narrowed the target I can try to hit. Now, if you turn your body too far to one side, it'll take too long to try and hit me with your dominant hand -- that, and it's easy for me to knock you off-balance. You want to be about forty-five degrees to me. With me so far?"